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Development of brannerite glass‐ceramics for the immobilization of actinide‐rich radioactive wastes
Author(s) -
Zhang Yingjie,
Kong Linggen,
Karatchevtseva Inna,
Aughterson Robert D.,
Gregg Daniel J.,
Triani Gerry
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of the american ceramic society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.9
H-Index - 196
eISSN - 1551-2916
pISSN - 0002-7820
DOI - 10.1111/jace.14975
Subject(s) - actinide , plutonium , materials science , uranium , ceramic , raman spectroscopy , nuclear chemistry , radioactive waste , radiochemistry , mineralogy , metallurgy , chemistry , physics , optics
Brannerite‐based glass‐ceramics have been developed as potential waste forms for the immobilization of actinide‐rich radioactive wastes. For the first time, the formation of brannerite phases in glass has been demonstrated using uranium (U) and plutonium (Pu) with additions of gadolinium and hafnium as neutron absorbers. Both XRD and SEM ‐ EDS confirm that brannerite is the dominating phase with compositions close to Y 0.5 U 0.5 Ti 2 O 6 , Gd 0.2 Pu 0.3 U 0.5 Ti 2 O 6 , and Gd 0.1 Hf 0.1 Pu 0.2 U 0.6 Ti 2 O 6 internally crystallized in the glass. TEM SAED and Raman spectroscopy reveal the typical structure and vibration modes for brannerite. In addition, the presence of U 5+ species as designed in the formulations has been confirmed by diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. More importantly, the U and Pu were partitioned exclusively in the ceramic phases with no detectable actinide in the glass.