(1. College of Petrochemical Technology, Lanzhou University of Technology, Lanzhou 730000, China) (2. 404 Limited Company of China National Nuclear Corporation, Jiayuguan 735100, China) (3. Key Laboratory of Sciences and Technology on Wear and Protection of Materials, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China) (4. School of Materials and Optoelectronic Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 101408, China)
Uranium is widely used in the fields of national defense and nuclear energy because of its high density and excellent nuclear performance. However, uranium is easily corroded in corrosive environment due to its high reactivity. Surface treatment technology is widely used to improve the corrosion resistance of uranium. This paper focuses on the requirements of uranium surface anti-corrosion.The research progress of uranium corrosion protection technologies including surface alloying, electroplating, ion implantation and ion plating is reviewed. The future development of different technologies is prospected according to the current problems. At present, the ion implantation and ion plating have become the focus in recent years and have great development potential. However, the corrosion resistance of uranium metal still needs to be further improved. Composite deposition technology can combine the advantages of various technologies and it is expected to prepare uranium corrosion resistant coatings with better corrosion resistance. In addition, high-power pulsed magnetron sputtering technology has great application potential and is a potential method to prepare high-performance uranium anticorrosion coatings, which is worthy of further study.On the other hand, uranium can become an excellent hydrogen storage material by making rational use of its hydrogen corrosion characteristics.