Progress report of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Metallurgy Division providing updates on various projects, experiments, and other work. This report includes a summary of nondestructive testing, physical chemistry of corrosion, fundamental physico-metallurgical research, HRP metallurgy, process metallurgy, metallurgical materials and processing, metallography, and ceramics research.

A spectrophotometric method for the determination of cerium with Tiron (disodium-1,2-dihydroxybenzene-3,5disulfonate) was applied to the determination of cerium in samples which contain uranium and zirconium. The cerium-Tiron complex in solutions of pH 8 or greater exhibits an absorption maximum of 500 mu . This reagent does not react with any other lanthanide element. The interference of iron, uranium, and zirconium was eliminated by extracting these interfering elements with a solution of trioctylphosphine oxide in cyclohexane. (auth)