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> Proton irradiation-decelerated intergranular corrosion

This is specifically proton irradiation as opposed to neutron.

It doesn't appear to come for free.

At the end of the discussion section, there is some evidence presented that this self-healing effect occurs under neutron irradiation as well, though the exact implications for fast reactor materials seem unclear.

Makes sense, the basic mechanism seems to be mediated by increased interstitial diffusion. Shouldn’t really matter if it’s protons or neutrons that are generating those interstitials

Edit: on re-reading, it doesn’t seem that they’ve actually performed any neutron irradiation experiments

Neutron radiation leads to embrittlement in many materials, so the long term effects will have to be considered in addition to short term corrosion rate improvements.

That’s a really good point, and I agree, but any alloy used for reactor components is going to have to deal with embrittlement one way or another. At the end of the day this is just another potential tool in the alloy design toolbox, and it might or might not turn out to be useful for mitigating corrosion in reactor materials

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