Experimental assessment of U(Cd)O2 preparation

HOFFMANN, NICOLÁS; GANA WATKINS, IGNACIO; SOLDATI, ANALIA L.; PRADO, MIGUEL OSCAR

Montpellier

Conferencia; Nuclear Materials Conference 2016; 2016

ELSEVIER

Integral Burnable poisons are isotopes of somespecific elements that are used for controlling the excess of reactivity ofnuclear fuels when they are included in the nuclear fuel pellets. At present,Gadolinium is the main integral burnable poison used in UO2 fuel;Boron (B) and Cadmium (Cd) are used also as burnable poisons although not asintegral part of the fuel pellets. However, several computational works remarktheir good properties as integral burnable poisons.  In this work, we experimentally asses thepossibility of preparing U(Cd)O2 powder by the reverse strikecoprecipitation method (RSC), which consisted of precipitating from an U and Cd(15% weight) nitric solution, at a constant pH of  9 and at a temperature of 65°C, a mixture ofAmonium Diuranate (ADU) and Cd(OH)2. After high temperaturereduction in 5% H2 atmosphere this solution resulted in U(Cd)O2powder. This product was characterized by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) (SeeFig. 1), Transmission Electron Microscopy-Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy(TEM-EDS, See Fig. 2) and Differential Thermal Analysis (DTA).