[en] The proposed design for a final repository for spent fuel and other long-lived residues is based on the multi-barrier principle. The waste will be encapsulated in sealed cylindrical canisters, which will be placed in granite bedrock and surrounded by compacted bentonite clay. The canister design is based on a thick cast iron insert fitted inside a copper canister. SKB has since several years developed manufacturing processes for the canister components using a network of manufacturers. For the encapsulation process SKB has built the Canister Laboratory to demonstrate and develop the encapsulation technique in full scale. The critical part of the encapsulation of spent fuel is the sealing of the canister which is done by welding the copper lid to the cylindrical part of the canister. Two welding techniques have been developed in parallel, Electron Beam Welding (EBW) and Friction Stir Welding (FSW). During the past two decades, SKB has developed the technology EBW at The Welding Institute (TWI) in Cambridge, UK. The development work at the Canister Laboratory began in 1999. In electron beam welding, a gun is used to generate the electron beam which is aimed at the joint. The beam heats up the material to the melting point allowing a fusion weld to be formed. The gun was developed by TWI and has a unique design for use at reduced pressure. The system has gone through a number of improvements under the last couple of years including implementation of a beam oscillation system. However, during fabrication of the outer copper canisters there will be some unavoidable grain growth in the welded areas. As grains grow they will tend to concentrate impurities at the new grain boundaries that might pose adverse effects on the corrosion resistance of welds. As a new method for joining, SKB has been developing friction stir welding (FSW) for sealing copper canisters for spent nuclear fuel in cooperation with TWI since 1997. FSW was invented in 1991 at TWI and is a thermo mechanical solid-state process, i.e. not a fusion welding method. The FSW tool consists of two parts: a tapered pin (or probe) and a shoulder. The function of the tool is to heat up the material by means of friction and, by virtue of its shape, force the material to flow around it and create a joint. This means that the problems encountered in fusion welding, for example unfavourable grain structure and size and segregation phenomena, can be avoided. The microstructure in copper resulting from FSW resembles the microstructure resulting from hot forming of the copper components in the canister. However, some impurities from the tool, such as metal particles, have been detected in the weld material. This study aimed to investigate whether the driving force of galvanic corrosion between weld material and base material could pose a problem and whether metallic particles originating from the FSW tool could induce and sustain corrosion. In this study, a surface untreated FSW tool was used to simulate the worst case scenario. For today's FSW welds, the tools have been surface treated which results in no detectable levels of metal particles in the weld. For the study described in this report, 9 samples from FSW (produced with surface untreated tools) and 1 EBW sample were investigated in this study. As result, the FSW samples show less corrosion compared to EBW and the residues from FSW tool do not influence corrosion adversely. Furthermore, copper oxides do not influence the corrosion properties of FSW welds noticeably. In conclusion, FSW for sealing copper canisters for spend nuclear fuel provides more durable welds from a corrosion point of view