The investigation of Sn corrosion on Mo meshes under the irradiation of high-flux hydrogen plasma

Abstract

Liquid-metal divertor consisting of liquid Sn and Mo meshes would face high-flux plasma environments during service. In this work, the Sn corrosion behaviors on initial and pre-irradiated Mo meshes under hydrogen plasma irradiation were investigated to evaluate the reliability of the porous structure. According to the analysis and computation of XRD spectrum, the sub-grain size of the initial meshes would continuously grow during the corrosion process. The SEM images showed that after corrosion, the appearance and disappearance of prismatic Mo grains occurred alternately with the increase of plasma fluence. The thicknesses of corroded wires in the longitudinal and transverse directions displayed a similar repeatable change. In comparison to initial meshes, surface sub-grain growth and damage induced by the pre-irradiation treatment would result in differences in the corrosion process under hydrogen plasma irradiation. The pre-irradiated surface Mo grains with obvious grain boundaries were first dissolved to pebble-like Mo particles by liquid Sn and then stripped from the surface after corrosion. Sub-grain size was reduced from 72.5 nm to 41.1 nm at the fluence of 1.07 × 1026 ions/m2, which was inverse to the increasing phenomenon of the initial sample under same corrosion conditions. Additionally, the corrosion phenomenon, i.e., the presence and subsequent disappearance of prismatic Mo grains, occurred similarly on the surface of pre-irradiated samples. Based on the analysis of initial and pre-irradiated surface morphologies and wire thickness, Mo grains might go through an onion-peeling-like cycle of growth and fracture during the corrosion process. Besides, the wire thicknesses of all pre-irradiated Mo meshes were slightly less than that of the initial samples under the same corrosion conditions. Somehow, the comparative result reflected that the pre-irradiated samples were corroded more severely. Thus, the pre-irradiation of hydrogen plasma in this work would weaken corrosion resistance of Mo meshes in liquid Sn.