Liquid metal cooled reactor Clementine was the first liquid metal cooled nuclear reactor and used mercury coolant, thought to be the obvious choice since it is liquid at room temperature. However, because of disadvantages including high toxicity, high vapor pressure even at room temperature, low boiling point, producing noxious fumes when heated, relatively low thermal conductivity, and a high neutron cross-section, it has fallen out of favor. Sodium and NaK (a eutectic sodium-potassium alloy) do not corrode steel to any significant degree and are compatible with many nuclear fuels, allowing for a wide choice of structural materials. They do, however, ignite spontaneously on contact
Liquid metal solution slowly, producing gallates like [Ga(OH)], which makes the surface of gallium negatively charged and cations accumulated nearby, and thus the electrically charged interface forms into a uniform diffuse electrical double layer (EDL) . The electrons flowing internally from Al to the liquid metal preferentially deoxidate the oxidized gallium near the Al, which alters the distribution of the charges across the EDL, leading to the generation of a potential gradient along the liquid metal surface. According to Lippmann's equation, the alteration of the EDL induces an imbalance of the surface tension on the liquid metal. Following the Young-Laplace equation, the