Abstract
Lead, lead-bismuth, or lead-lithium are candidate materials for liquid metal-based cooling media in the new generation of nuclear fission reactors and fusion systems. There are many benefits of using this concept; however, a new problem arises too: preventing degradation of structural materials that are supposed to come into a direct contact. Therefore, new steel grades are being designed, and technological workarounds are searched for. One of the pathways could be a deposition of thick, long-term stability protective coatings onto the steel surfaces. In our opening study, we have employed CS and RF-ICP technologies to deposit Mo and Fe coatings onto ferritic-type 9% Cr Eurofer steel and its ODS variant, and tested them in the PbLi environment at 600 °C for up to 1000 hours. The results suggest that the Fe coatings showed a promising resistance to the corrosive medium and are worth studying deeper.
