ABSTRACT
C-free green energy is the thriving need for the twenty-first century energy portfolio, encompassing solar to the nuclear alternative. However, the challenging need for nuclear reactors is to improve efficiency via operating at higher temperatures alongside much safer and higher service life (>>30 yrs.) compared to the existing one. A typical reactor withstands intense neutron radiation, high temperature, complex stress state, and corrosive environments that determine its lifetime. Hence, a new class of structural material that could satisfy every performance criteria for Gen-IV reactor targeting higher operating temperature is still in the search within the community. Notably, in recent years, graphene, a 2D nanomaterial, derived from graphite, emerges as a new class of material with remarkable mechanical properties. Graphene reinforced nanocrystalline (NC) metal-matrix is recently getting attention due to its large number of interfaces and grain boundaries that can essentially trap radiation-induced defects (vacancies and interstitials), showing remarkable radiation tolerance in comparison to the coarse grain counter-part of the metal matrix. High-energy neutron bombardment causes knocking off the atoms from their regular lattice sites, resulting in vacancy and interstitial as a primary defect; these excess defects can easily recombine at their large number of interfaces provided by the NC-metal/graphene nano-composite and graphene’s high neutron absorption cross-section. Recent studies reveal radiation tolerance response of graphene nanocomposites with NC-Ni, V, Cu, and Al increases without scarifying its key properties. In the current chapter, a comprehensive discussion regarding the current state-of-the-art technology, future trends and prospects of graphene/metal nanocomposite have been put forward.
