Development of Advanced In-Situ Techniques for Chemistry Monitoring and Corrosion Mitigation in SCWO Environments

Super Critical Water Oxidation (SCWO) is a promising technology for destroying highly toxic organic waste (including physiological agents) and for reducing the volume of DOE's low-level nuclear waste. The major problem inhibiting the wide implementation of SCWO is the lack of fundamental knowledge about various physico-chemical and corrosion processes that occur in SCW environments. In particular, the lack of experimental techniques for accurately monitoring important parameters, such as pH, corrosion potential and corrosion rate, has severely hampered the development of a quantitative understanding of the degradation of materials in this extraordinarily aggressive environment. Accordingly, the principal objective of the present program has been to develop new, innovative methods for accurately measuring parameters that characterize corrosion processes under super critical conditions.