Gamma irradiation of nitrate-based salts

An experiment was devised to determine the radiolytic stability of two commercially available candidate salts - Hitec and Draw Temp 430. The salts were exposed to 0.8 x 109 R of gamma radiation in the 60Co facility at the Argonne National Laboratory and simultaneously heated to temperatures in excess of 5300C. A helium gas stream circulated over the salts was analyzed for decomposition products. It was found that there was no observable thermal or radiolytic decomposition of either salt. Although the exposure was equivalent to only about 1 minute in a controlled thermonuclear reactor, the results were very encouraging and suggest that further experimentation on molten nitrate-based salts is warranted