Evaporation of mercury impurity from liquid lead–bismuth eutectic

Abstract

The equilibrium evaporation of mercury from dilute solutions in liquid lead–bismuth eutectic (LBE) was studied in argon atmosphere. Mercury present as impurity in LBE was evaporated and detected by atomic fluorescence spectroscopy. A method which could accurately simulate the experimental data was developed. Coefficients of the Henry constant temperature correlation for mercury dissolved in LBE were determined. Experiments with samples from several different batches of LBE revealed that mercury at mole fractions between 10−6 and 10−12 and temperatures between 150 and 350°C evaporated from liquid LBE close to ideal behavior. Evaporation of mercury from solid LBE on the other hand was unexpectedly high. These results are important for safety evaluations of LBE based spallation targets and accelerator driven systems.