Ding, H., Gausse, C., Dixon Wilkins, M.C. et al. (10 more authors) (2022) Chemical characterisation of degraded nuclear fuel analogues simulating the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident. npj Materials Degradation, 6 (1). 10.
Abstract
The Fukushima Daiichi accident generated degraded nuclear fuel material, mixed with other reactor components, known as molten core-concrete interaction (MCCI) material. Simulant MCCI material was synthesised, excluding highly radioactive fission products, containing depleted U, and incorporating Ce as a surrogate for Pu. Multi-modal µ-focus X-ray analysis revealed the presence of the expected suite of U-Zr-O containing minerals, in addition to crystalline silicate phases CaSiO3, SiO2-cristobalite and Ce-bearing perclevite, (Ce,Nd)2Si2O7. The formation of perclevite resulted from reaction between the U-Zr-O-depleted Ce-Nd-O melt and the silicate (SiO2) melt. It was determined that the majority of U was present as U4+, whereas Ce was observed to be present as Ce3+, consistent with the highly reducing synthesis conditions. A range of Fe-containing phases characterised by different average oxidation states were identified, and it is hypothesised that their formation induced heterogeneity in the local oxygen potential, influencing the oxidation state of Ce.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
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) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council EP/N017374/1; EP/R01924X/1; EP/S020659/1; and EP/S01019X/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 23 Feb 2022 12:09 |
Last Modified: | 23 Feb 2022 12:09 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer Nature |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s41529-022-00219-3 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:183954 |