Corrosion behavior of stainless steel-zirconium alloy waste forms

Stainless steel-zirconium (SS-Zr) alloys are being considered as waste forms for the disposal of metallic waste generated during the electrometallurgical treatment of spent nuclear fuel. The baseline waste form for spent fuels from the EBR-11 reactor is a stainless steel-15 wt.% zirconium (SS-15Zr) alloy. This article briefly reviews the microstructure of various SS-Zr waste form alloys and presents results of immersion corrosion and electrochemical corrosion tests performed on these alloys. The electrochemical tests show that the corrosion behavior of SS-Zr alloys is comparable to those of other alloys being considered for the Yucca Mountain geologic repository. The immersion tests demonstrate that the SS-Zr alloys are resistant to selective leaching of fission product elements and, hence, suitable as candidates for high-level nuclear waste forms