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William C. Phillips, Ph.D.

Research Areas:

Biography:

​Dr. Phillips is a research scientist in the Pyrochemistry and Molten Salt Systems department at Idaho National Laboratory. His work currently focuses on chemistry and materials science in molten salt systems, with an emphasis on nuclear energy applications. His research interests involve natural circulation molten salt flow loops to understand corrosion, chemistry controls and thermal hydraulics in molten salt reactors, irradiation testing of molten salts, salt synthesis, purification, and analysis methods, and pyrometallurgical reprocessing of used nuclear fuel. He has previously used spectroscopic techniques to probe the molecular and electronic structure of molten salts and has a background in corrosion and materials science for high temperature systems. He received his B.S. (2014), M.S. (2015), and Ph.D. (2019) in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Nevada, Reno.

Publications:

​Relevant Publications

​R. Gakhar et al., “Molten Salt Fuels: Properties, Purification, and Corrosion Control," in Encyclopedia of Nuclear Energy, Elsevier, July 2021

E.T. Dias et al. “Radiation-Assisted Formation of Metal Nanoparticles in Molten Salts," J Phys Chem Lett. 2021 Jan 14;12(1):157-164 (2020)

W. Phillips et al., “Design and performance of high-temperature furnaces and cell holder for in-situ spectroscopic, electrochemical, and radiolytic investigations of molten salts in extreme environments," Rev. Sci. Inst. 91, 083105 (2020)

S. K. Gill et al., “Connections Between the Speciation and Solubility of Ni(II) and Co(II) in Molten ZnCl2," J. Phys. Chem. B, Accepted: p. acs.jpcb.0c00195, Jan. 2020.

G. L. Fredrickson et al., “Review—Electrochemical Measurements in Molten Salt Systems: A Guide and Perspective," J. Electrochem. Soc., vol. 166, no. 13, pp. D645–D659, Sep. 2019.

W. Phillips and D. Chidambaram, “Effect of Metallic Li on the Surface Chemistry of Inconel 625 Exposed to Molten LiCl-Li 2 O-Li," J. Electrochem. Soc., vol. 166, no. 11, pp. C3193–C3199, 2019.

W. Phillips, Z. Karmiol, and D. Chidambaram, “Effect of metallic li on the corrosion behavior of Inconel 625 in molten LiCl-Li2O-Li," J. Electrochem. Soc., vol. 166, no. 6, pp. C162–C168, 2019.

W. Phillips and D. Chidambaram, “Corrosion of stainless steel 316L in molten LiCl-Li 2 O-Li," J. Nucl. Mater., vol. 517, pp. 241–253, Apr. 2019.

W. Phillips, A. Merwin, and D. Chidambaram, “On the Corrosion Performance of Monel 400 in Molten LiCl-Li2O-Li at 923 K," Metall. Mater. Trans. A Phys. Metall. Mater. Sci., vol. 49, no. 6, pp. 2384–2392, Jun. 2018.

 A. Merwin, et al., “Presence of Li Clusters in Molten LiCl-Li," Sci. Rep., vol. 6, pp. 1–6, 2016. ​​

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Created at 5/27/2022 12:34 PM by Tiffany M. Adams
Last modified at 5/27/2022 12:34 PM by Tiffany M. Adams