Thornber, S.M., Heath, P.G., Da Costa, G.P. et al. (2 more authors) (2017) The effect of pre-treatment parameters on the quality of glass-ceramic wasteforms for plutonium immobilisation, consolidated by hot isostatic pressing. Journal of Nuclear Materials, 485. pp. 253-261. ISSN 0022-3115
Abstract
Glass-ceramics with high glass fractions (70 wt%) were fabricated in stainless steel canisters by hot isostatic pressing (HIP), at laboratory scale. High (600 C) and low (300 C) temperature pre-treatments were investigated to reduce the canister evacuation time and to understand the effect on the phase assemblage and microstructure of the hot isostatically pressed product. Characterisation of the HIPed materials was performed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), coupled with energy dispersive Xray analysis (EDX) and powder X-ray diffraction (XRD). This analysis showed the microstructure and phase assemblage was independent of the variation in pre-treatment parameters. It was demonstrated that a high temperature pre-treatment of batch reagents, prior to the HIP cycle, is beneficial when using oxide precursors, in order to remove volatiles and achieve high quality dense materials. Sample throughput can be increased significantly by utilising a high temperature ex-situ calcination prior to the HIP cycle. Investigation of glass-ceramic wasteform processing utilising a glass frit precursor, produced a phase assemblage and microstructure comparable to that obtained using oxide precursors. The use of a glass frit precursor should allow optimised throughput of waste packages in a production facility, avoiding the need for a calcination pre-treatment required to remove volatiles from oxide precursors.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) |
Keywords: | Glass-ceramics; Hot isostatic press; Plutonium residues |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Engineering (Sheffield) > Department of Materials Science and Engineering (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 02 Feb 2017 16:45 |
Last Modified: | 02 Feb 2017 16:45 |
Published Version: | http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnucmat.2016.12.028 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.jnucmat.2016.12.028 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:111356 |