Anna-Elina Pasi

Anna-Elina’s project is part of the severe nuclear accident research at Chalmers. Her main focus is on tellurium and iodine aqueous chemistry in the containment sump. Tellurium is one of the more volatile fission products released during a nuclear accident and thus, has to be taken into account when assessing the consequences of an accident. The sump is a complex mixture of chemicals from for example emergency cooling systems and dissolution of reactor materials. Most of the fission products released from the reactor core, including tellurium, will end up in the sump and are subjected to multiple possible further reactions that can affect their volatility and consequently increase the release to the environment. Anna-Elina’s work includes small scale experiments in simulated sump solution where she focuses on solubility, redox reactions and radiolysis effect on tellurium and iodine. The goal of her project is to gain knowledge about tellurium chemistry in the severe accident scenario and aim towards more accurate source-term analysis as well as provide data for accident management and severe accident code validation purposes.