Technology for obtaining PbO mass exchangers with different geometries designed for oxygen control in Pb or LBe systems

One of the problems of using pure lead as coolant agent in LFR reactors is the presence of oxygen as impurity, which influences the corrosion of structural materials. For this reason, it is important to control the concentration of dissolved oxygen from the coolant agent in a well-defined range. Two methods are used for controlling the oxygen from the coolant agent: oxygen control via the gas phase and oxygen control via solid phase. In this paper, the second method is used, which is based on the dissolution process of PbO in solid phase, introduced in the cooling circuit. For this, mass exchangers, in the form of PbO compacts, which dissolves the oxygen from the coolant, are used. This paper aims to obtain PbO mass exchangers with different geometries. Different technological tests were carried out in order to develop a technology for obtaining PbO compacts with mechanical strength, in three different shapes: oval, parallelepiped and cylindrical. (authors)