High temperature liquid metal corrosion and high temperature electrical conductivity of Y2O3

Yttrium sesquioxide has been proposed as a promising candidate material for collector electrodes used in the laser enrichment system of uranium-235. For this purpose, yttria is expected to be compatible with molten uranium and electrically conductive. A corrosion test of yttria with molten lanthanum as a simulating metal for uranium and a measurement of its electrical conductivity under extremely low oxygen pressure were performed. It was shown from the corrosion test that a yttria sample was considerably corroded by the molten lanthanum at 1513 K and the maximum corrosion depth for 5 Ms was 0.162 mm. The electrical conductivity of hypo-stoichiometric yttria reduced by titanium was higher than that of pure germanium at room temperature (2.1 S/m). The oxygen pressures equilibrated with the yttria specimens were estimated to discuss the relation to measured conductivities. (orig.)