Effect of Chemical Additives in Sump on Boric Acid Solubility

Boric acid precipitation, which happens in the pressurized water reactor core during post-LOCA long-term cooling period, could adhere to fuel rod surfaces and, as a result, block the fuel assembly cooling channels. Deposition of boric acid and other impurities on the fuel rods will increase thermal resistance, and then induce fuel temperature to exceed its safety limit, finally causes reactor core damage or meltdown. Therefore, recently, the boric acid precipitation issue was raised by NRC when nuclear power plants in USA, for example, Waterford EPU, applied for power uprate licenses. NRC highlighted boric acid precipitation as a generic issue due to non-conservatism in vendor's model in 2005. Also the Westinghouse Owners Group held meetings to discuss the methodology to avoid boric acid precipitation in the current PWR nuclear power plants. Until now there is no database for evaluating the properties of a boric acid-water mixture, together with chemical additives, such as Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH), Tri-sodium Phosphate (Na3PO4) and fiberglass, being added from the containment sump, when the concentration is close to the solubility limit. Therefore, this study investigated boric acid solubility when boric acid is mixed with NaOH, Na3PO4 and other chemical additives. Another purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between boric acid solubility and the effects of chemical additives, boric acid volatility, boiling phenomenon, etc. The empirical equation of boric acid solubility in the mixture solution is deduced from experiment results and chemical dynamics theories