Nuclear Fuel in a Reactor Accident

Burns, Peter C.; Ewing, Rodney C.; Navrotsky, Alexandra

doi:10.1126/science.1211285

Cited by 446 publications

(305 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Finally, UO 3 and its room-temperature hydration products, (UO 2 )(OH) 2 (a-uranyl hydroxide) and (UO 2 ) 8 O 2 (OH) 12 (H 2 O) 10 (metaschoepite), feature hexavalent uranium that can be reduced multiple steps to the tetravalent oxidation state 23 . They are common oxidation/hydrolysis products of the nuclear fuel UO 2 and are produced by fuelcoolant interactions and groundwater exposure of fuel 4 .…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Substantial effort has been devoted to understanding the influence of crystal structure and chemistry on radiation damage accumulation 2,3 . The radiation tolerance of actinide materials, which refers to their ability to retain their atomic structures and properties during irradiation, is of primary concern for the design of nuclear fuels with long operating lifetimes and adequate performance in reactor accident scenarios 4 . A variety of criteria have been proposed as predictors of radiation tolerance, including bond covalency 5 , susceptibility to disordering 2 , thermodynamic stability 6 and grain size 7 .…”

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confidence: 99%

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Redox response of actinide materials to highly ionizing radiation

et al. 2015

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Energetic radiation can cause dramatic changes in the physical and chemical properties of actinide materials, degrading their performance in fission-based energy systems. As advanced nuclear fuels and wasteforms are developed, fundamental understanding of the processes controlling radiation damage accumulation is necessary. Here we report oxidation state reduction of actinide and analogue elements caused by high-energy, heavy ion irradiation and demonstrate coupling of this redox behaviour with structural modifications. ThO 2 , in which thorium is stable only in a tetravalent state, exhibits damage accumulation processes distinct from those of multivalent cation compounds CeO 2 (Ce 3 þ and Ce 4 þ ) and UO 3 (U 4 þ , U 5 þ and U 6 þ ). The radiation tolerance of these materials depends on the efficiency of this redox reaction, such that damage can be inhibited by altering grain size and cation valence variability. Thus, the redox behaviour of actinide materials is important for the design of nuclear fuels and the prediction of their performance.

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Redox response of actinide materials to highly ionizing radiation

et al. 2015

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“…In addition, the density of the pressurized water used in all simulations decreased from 1 g/cm 3 at 25°C to 0.575 g/cm 3 (16.5 MPa) at 350°C [19].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It circulates around the reactor core at a normal operating temperature of ~250-310°C and is heavily irradiated by a mixture of radiation fields such as gamma radiation, fast electrons, fast neutrons and so forth. It interacts directly with those radiations fields that can cause radiolysis of water (decomposition of water by nuclear radiation) which generate free radicals (such as e [1][2][3][4]. For these reasons, the water chemistry in a water-cooled nuclear power plant has to be controlled.…”

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confidence: 99%

Temperature Dependence of the Primary Species Yields of Liquid Water Radiolysis by 0.8-MeV Fast Neutrons

et al. 2016

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The yields of species such as e -aq , H • , • OH, H 2 and H 2 O 2 , formed from the radiolysis of neutral liquid water by the incidence of 0.8-MeV neutrons at temperatures between 25 and 350°C, were calculated by using Monte Carlo simulations. The slowing down of these neutrons through elastic scattering produced recoil protons elastically of ~0.5057, 0.186, and 0.0684 MeV which had linear energy transfers (LETs) of ~40, 67 and 76 keV/µm, respectively, at 25°C. The effects of neutron radiation can be predicted based on the contribution of those first three recoil protons by neglecting the radiation effects due to oxygen ion recoils. Then, the fast neutron yields could be estimated by summing the yields of contributing protons after corresponding weightings were used according to their energy. In this work, yields were calculated at 10 -7 and 10 -6 s after incidence of neutron radiation in water at the aforementioned temperature range. Overall, there is a reasonably good agreement between our calculated and existing experimental G-values for the entire temperature range. However, we proposed an hypothesis that the not very significant difference between experimental data and our calculated data is due to the different measuring time used in obtaining the experimental data as compared to the ones used in our calculation. Our computed yields for 0.8-MeV fast neutron radiation show an essentially similar temperature dependences over the range of temperature studied with 2-MeV fast neutron and low-LET radiation, but with lower values for yields of free radicals and higher values for molecular yields.

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“…Following the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant triggered by the earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tohoku, Japan, on March 11, 2011 [1], a number of volatile fission products as, e.g., 129m Te, 131 I, 134 Cs, 136 Cs, and 137 Cs have been released into the atmosphere [2]. These radioactive nuclides were carried by wind and fell out on the land surface, by which soil contamination occurs [3]- [5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%