58 Determination of Hydrogen Evolution from Uranium by Thermal Conductivity Available to Purchase

A purge technique consisting of both solid extraction and fusion extraction was performed using thermal conductivity detection to determine the hydrogen content of uranium metal. The time dependence of the hydrogen evolution from the surface contamination and the bulk metal was sufficiently different to analyze the two components. Hydrogen originating from uranium surface contamination was approximately 0.32 weight-parts-per-million (wppm). This accounted for 23% of the total H₂ outgassed. Studies were conducted using a hydrogen analyzer with sensitivity of 0.01 wppm. Various temperature ramp rates and hold times were used to deconvolute the origin of hydrogen evolution phenomena. Results show a significant improvement of peak separation for surface and interstitial hydrogen compared to high vacuum techniques using mass spectrographic detection.