Chemistry of Actinides in Molten Glasses and Its Correlation to Structural Performance of Solid Glasses: Filling the Knowledge Gap

This proposal focuses on the following basic objectives to generate critical information for the following research Needs: (a) to conduct spectroscopic speciation of uranium compounds in glass-forming melts as a function of the acid-base composition of the glasses and melt temperatures, and to use these data to develop a general thermodynamic model for the dissolution of actinide species in oxidic glass matrices, (b ) to build a scientific basis for a new methodology to measure the basicity of glasses via optical spectra of in-situ immobilized actinides and to use this optical basicity as a primary actinide structure indicator for solid glass matrices, (c) to define the local environment of actinides in solid glasses via fluorescence lifetime distribution methods, (d) to correlate the above spectral ''fingerprints'' of actinides in solid and molten glasses with glass stability and the leaching rates of individual actinide species from a glass matrix