Evaluation of Hydrogen Gettering Rates Correlated to Surface Composition and Texture of Nickel-Plated Zircaloy Getters of Different Heat Treatment Procedures

Coatings of metal specimens are known to have an impact on hydrogen gettering (hydrogen absorption). The coating can have one or more functions, such as enhancing gettering, preventing gettering and/or preventing oxidation of the metal substrate. It is known that contaminants and surface texture can impact hydrogen gettering/absorption performance, but has not previously been thoroughly explored. This study evaluated the role of different post-plating heat treatments of nickel-plated zircaloy-4 getters (NPGs) and the role of the heat treatments on gettering rates, surface composition and texture. Nickel plating is applied to prevent oxidation of the Zircaloy-4 surface and also enhances gettering. The nickel plating must be heat treated before desirable gettering can occur. Our NPG getters with historically known satisfying performance were pre-heat treated in air followed by activation heat treatment in a vacuum at a higher temperature. In this study, we were interested in finding out if both heat treatment steps were necessary to obtain a desirable gettering performance, or if one step could be omitted. XPS analysis showed that if the nickel surface is not heat treated before bonding the nickel to the zirconium in the activation step, there will be carbon contaminants on the surface, which significantly reduces gettering. We studied the texture of Zircaloy-4 using SEM/EBSD to compare NPGs with both heat treatment steps with NPGs that had no post-plating heat treatment to learn if the degree of cold work could be impacted by the heat treatment steps. We did not observe any differences in texture between them. We measured gettering rates of both pretreated and activated NPGs and NPGs that had been activated without first being pre-heat treated. We found that the NPGs without the first post-plating heating step had up to a seven times slower gettering rate and obtained higher plateau pressures due to the contaminated surface. Thus, the pre-heat treatment in air before activation is necessary to avoid slower gettering rates and higher plateau pressures.