Great Country Academician

Compared with other people's uneasiness, Xu Chuan was basically not nervous.

All he has is expectations, looking forward to what kind of "crystalline erbium zirconate" anti-material produced by special nanotechnology based on the "atomic cycle" theory can be achieved.

He is actually very clear about the anti-radiation effect of 'crystalline erbium zirconate'. But what he knew was from his previous life.

In the previous replica experiments, he used mathematical methods to recalculate and adjust some things in this technology, and optimized this material to a certain extent.

Theoretically, the optimized 'crystalline erbium zirconate' has better radiation resistance or radiation stability.

It's just that compared with the previous "crystalline erbium zirconate" material, he doesn't know how much it can be improved.

Radiation resistance or radiation stability refers to the ability of a substance to maintain its inherent physical and chemical properties after receiving a certain dose of radiation.

The radiation resistance of materials is related to its molecular structure, relative molecular mass and aggregation state.

For example, isotactic polypropylene with tertiary carbon atoms undergoes detectable changes when it receives 1.2×10Gy radiation energy, and 8×10Gy undergoes serious changes, such as becoming brittle and breaking with a hand.

However, polystyrene with aromatic rings requires doses of 8×10Gy and 3×10Gy for the above-mentioned similar changes.

Like the special anti-radiation rubber in nuclear power engineering, its radiation resistance is higher.

As for things such as lead metal and radiation-resistant steel plate materials, they have almost reached the peak of radiation resistance in the current material industry.

As for the radiation resistance of 'crystalline erbium zirconate', according to the materials developed in the previous life, strictly speaking, it is not comparable to ultra-high-density materials such as lead metal.

There is a little difference between the two, and it is at a critical node.

But compared with lead metal, it has its own unique advantages.

One is weight, which is lighter than lead.

Under the same volume, the weight of the protective material made of 'crystalline erbium zirconate' is only about one-fifth of that of lead.

The second is persistence.

Because of the atomic cycle, under the same radiation intensity, the protective material made of crystalline erbium zirconate can definitely last longer than the protective material doped with lead metal.

The self-healing of grain boundaries is accomplished by using radiation energy, which can promote the long-term atomic cycle of crystalline erbium zirconate.

Although lead metal can rely on its own density to resist nuclear radiation, once the internal lead grain boundaries are destroyed, it will cause a chain reaction and cause the grain boundaries to collapse.

The time required for the radiation resistance test can be said to be very long, or it can be said to be very short.

The long-term resistance test needs at least ten or fifteen days to complete the drawing of the radiation curve and the material change curve, so that the limit of this resistance material can be judged relatively accurately.

The radiation intensity resistance test is not required.

Through instruments and equipment, strong radiation sources of different intensities are produced, and the intensity of radiation energy is gradually increased to determine where the limit of this material is.

This kind of test can be completed in one morning.

For Xu Chuan, the materials he made himself clearly knew his limit.

For the radiation intensity test, he directly started with the intensity of 2 Gy·h-1. This standard is the bottom line for high-level nuclear waste.

If it is lower than this number, nuclear waste will be classified as intermediate level nuclear waste, and if it is higher than this level, it will be the most difficult high-level nuclear waste to deal with.

The larger the value, the higher the radiation intensity.

If you can't even meet this standard, how can it be used for nuclear waste disposal.

Of course, the resistance test of radiation intensity is not simply judged from the radiation intensity index.

In addition, there are the thickness of the material, the resistance time and other aspects.

After all, any material, even water or air, has certain radiation resistance.

Ordinary concrete, if the thickness can reach more than 1.5 meters, can also isolate most of the nuclear radiation.

After the big explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Hongsu used thick concrete cement to build a cement sarcophagus outside the No. 4 reactor as an isolation protective cover.

But the shortcomings are also huge. Under the strong radiation of nuclear waste, ordinary concrete cement can only have a lifespan of 20 to 30 years even if it can reach a thickness of two or three meters.

The sealed sarcophagus outside Chernobyl was actually rebuilt in 2011.

The sarcophagus built by Hongsu before has gone through 20 years, and it has already been corroded by nearly 200 tons of high-intensity nuclear waste inside.

Therefore, regardless of material thickness and resistance time, the resistance performance is a very unreliable thing.

It's like talking about toxicity without dosage.

For example, bananas contain the radioactive element "potassium-40", which can release ionizing radiation, but it takes almost 50 million bananas to collect the amount of radiation that can kill a person.

And before that, you'd probably have been stuffed to death, or died of a potassium imbalance.

However, on this basis, the thinner the material, the higher the radiation intensity it can resist, the more it can explain the performance of this material.

For the protective material made of "crystalline erbium zirconate", Xu Chuan's requirement is to have the performance against high-level nuclear waste within a thickness of two centimeters.

Only when this standard is met can it be widely used in various nuclear engineering and aerospace engineering and have corresponding value.

Under the auspices of Han Jin, the first round of the radiation intensity confrontation test with an intensity of 2 Gy·h-1 took nearly an hour, and a total of five confrontations were done.

Flipping through the confrontation data in Xu Chuan's hands, the confrontation structure above brought a smile to his mouth.

Judging from the current inspection structure, the radiation intensity resistance test is quite satisfactory.

The protective materials of 'crystalline erbium zirconate' with different shapes and thicknesses exhibited high-strength stability and resistance to α-rays, β-rays, γ-rays, X-rays and X-ray, neutron radiation shielding rate.

Under different irradiation environments, the protective material of 'crystalline erbium zirconate' has a shielding rate of 100% for alpha rays and beta rays when the thickness is one centimeter.

The average shielding rate of gamma rays and X-rays reached 90.4%; the frequency of neutron radiation reached 84.5%; the gamma shielding rate reached 60.3%.

If this kind of shielding rate is replaced by ordinary concrete cement, it will take about half a meter thick to achieve it.

Fifty centimeters to one centimeter is enough to reflect its shielding performance.

And more critical is its grain boundary loss rate.

In the 30-minute radiation intensity resistance test, even a one-centimeter-thick protective material, in the face of more than 30 minutes of radiation with an intensity of 2 Gy·h-1, the internal grain boundaries still did not suffer. Too much damage.

If the grain boundary integrity of a piece of material is compared to 100, after the end of the first round of testing, the grain boundary integrity of the first batch of 'crystalline erbium zirconate' protective materials, the grain boundary integrity of the five experiments all dropped by only 0.00032 , 0.00019, 0.00028, 0.00018

The average grain boundary damage rate is maintained at about 2/10,000. Compared with the protective materials manufactured in the United States in the previous life, the grain boundary damage rate is reduced by about 0.5/10,000.

The improvement is not very big, but some not-so-complicated modifications, in exchange for a certain degree of performance improvement, is a great thing.

In fact, the value of two ten thousandths of grain boundary loss integrity is already quite low.

You know, it is facing ionizing radiation exposure at the level of high-level radioactive nuclear waste.

If a person is exposed to this intensity of simulated radiation, within an hour, he will bleed to death from the seven orifices, which shows the horror of this intensity of nuclear radiation.

However, when the "crystalline erbium zirconate" protective material is exposed to simulated nuclear radiation of this intensity, the grain boundary damage is only 2/10,000.

Although this number will continue to increase over time, the self-healing properties of the 'crystalline erbium zirconate' protective material will eventually allow it to maintain a dynamic balance.

"Unbelievably, in the face of simulated nuclear radiation with an intensity of 2 Gy h-1 for half an hour, the grain boundary of the crystalline erbium zirconate material was damaged to less than 2/10,000. This figure is already far lower than that used for preservation Ceramic materials from nuclear waste."

In the laboratory, Xi Xuebo stared at the result of the confrontation in his hand.

The data recorded on the experimental results and the performance shown made him unbelievable.

Not to mention the radiation shielding rate, although the performance is excellent, there are still some differences from top materials such as lead metal.

The most important thing is the grain boundary damage rate, which is the key to how long the anti-material can maintain its own stability in the face of high-intensity nuclear radiation.

The strong ionizing nature of nuclear radiation can ionize all materials that come into contact with it, which can cause various problems in the material itself.

If its own stability is not strong enough, even if the radiation shielding rate of this material is excellent, it cannot be applied to industry.

According to the calculation of the above data of the test results, the crystalline erbium zirconate material can resist the intensity of simulated nuclear radiation exposure of 2 Gy·h-1 for more than 100 days.

This simply refreshed his understanding of confrontation materials.

Don't look at the short time of 100 days, but also look at the intensity of radiation you are facing.

As a researcher in nuclear energy, he has a very clear understanding of nuclear radiation protection materials.

Whether it is shielding materials made of lead metal, nuclear radiation protection cement, or rubber, they will all show different damages in the face of high-level nuclear waste.

According to the calculation in his mind, when a lead plate with a thickness of half a centimeter is faced with a simulated nuclear radiation with an intensity of 2Gy·h-1, the grain boundary loss rate is about one ten thousandth.

That is to say, after about two hundred days, the lead plate will lose its protective effect.

Considering that the thinner the lead plate, the weaker the protective shielding effect, the protection time will be further shortened.

And this crystalline erbium zirconate material will not, although from the current data, it can only last for a hundred days. But the most critical atomic cycle theory will allow grain boundaries to be restructured, and a hundred days is far from its limit.

In other words, if the speed of grain boundary reconstruction can keep up with the speed of destruction, then it can last forever and keep nuclear waste sealed.

Of course, this is only theoretical.

In fact, due to the interference of various external environments, the grain boundary reconstruction cannot be infinitely repeated, but the value it presents has far exceeded that of traditional nuclear radiation protection materials.

Looking at Xu Chuan who stood beside him indifferently, Xi Xuebo's eyes were full of admiration.

Is this the strength of a Nobel Prize winner? Even if you cross the border to the material industry, you can easily break the border.

If he had developed this material by himself, he would have jumped up excitedly, but Xu Chuan remained calm, as if it was just a trivial matter.

After receiving the results of the first round of radiation intensity resistance tests, Xu Chuan held the results in his hand with a smile on his face.

As he expected, the modified and optimized "crystalline erbium zirconate" material showed stronger performance in terms of radiation resistance or radiation stability.

The grain boundary loss rate of 2/10,000 in the first round of testing is the best proof.

The sharp ion scalpel of nuclear radiation has ushered in a shield that can restrain it.

Using optimized 'crystalline erbium zirconate' materials to manufacture storage containers, if there is no other interference, nuclear waste can be preserved for at least 100,000 years.

When this time passes, nuclear waste will no longer be highly polluting.

After all, there is a time for atomic decay to release harmful radiation.

Although some of the nuclear waste takes 200,000 or 300,000 years, or even longer, to completely decay, most of the spent fuel rods in nuclear power plants only need a few thousand years.

In other words, thousands of years can reduce its harm to a minimum.

If the project this time is only to develop a new type of nuclear waste preservation material, it can be said to be a success at this point.

In the future, as long as the optimized 'crystalline erbium zirconate' material passes other tests, it can be applied to the preservation of nuclear waste.

However, Xu Chuan's goal is not to develop a new type of nuclear waste preservation material. Instead, nuclear waste is reused to turn it from an extremely difficult pollutant into a new energy source!

For this goal, the successful development of the 'crystalline erbium zirconate' material is only the first step.

After handing over the follow-up test of the 'crystalline erbium zirconate' material to Han Jin, Xu Chuan returned to his laboratory with three researchers.

For others, the successful development of the 'crystalline erbium zirconate' material is great news, but for him it was only the first step.

There are still many difficulties waiting for him in the future.

"Xuebo, your job is to oxidize the gadolinium material in a pure oxygen environment, and then grind it into a powder with a diameter of less than ten nanometers."

"Lu Shun, your job is to purify the boron carbide material, and the purity requirement should be above 99.99%"

"Zhou Zhu, your job is..."

In the laboratory, Xu Chuan assigned the preparatory work one by one.

The success of the 'crystalline erbium zirconate' material proves that the atomic cycle technology is feasible in the face of high-intensity nuclear radiation. Strong protective clothing for laboratory work.