Hydrogen Evolution From Corrosion of Iron and Steel in Intermediate Level Waste Repositories

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe production of hydrogen from the anaerobic corrosion of iron or steel is an important issue in low/intermediate level nuclear waste repositories where large quantities of iron and steel (e.g. as drums and reinforcing steel) accompany the waste.Most of the iron in intermediate level repositories is in a cemen-titious environment. A review of the literature on the corrosion of iron and steel at high pH values, in particular in cementitious environments, points to hydrogen evolution rates between 22 and 220 mmol(H2)m−2a−1. There is some indication that the rates might be lower but for normal engineering applications there has been no practical need to demonstrate this, and hence a lower rate cannot be assumed on current evidence.In the present work a volumetric method was used to measure hydrogen evolution rates over several thousand hours under conditions relevant to intermediate level waste repositories. The sensitivity of this method (0.4 mmol(H2)m−2a−1) is sufficient to detect hydrogen evolution rates lower than those predicted for iron and steel in concrete.Hydrogen evolution rates in highly alkaline cement pore water were below 0.4 mmol m−2a−1 and almost 1 mmol m−2a−1 for a pore water representative of an aged cement; no decrease was observed even after 12000 h. In general hydrogen evolution rates in alkaline media were observed to take several thousand hours before approaching a constant rate.