Application of Self-Propagating High Temperature Synthesis to the Fabrication of Actinide Bearing Nitride and Other Ceramic Nuclear Fuels

John J. Moore, Douglas E. Burkes, Collin D. Donohoue, Marissa M. Reigel, J. Rory Kennedy

Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO

关键词: 11 Nuclear Fuel Cycle And Fuel Materials;    36 Materials Science;    37 Inorganic, Organic, Physical, And Analytical Chemistry;   

RP-ID  :  DOE/ID/14648-1
RP-ID  :  FC07-05ID14648
RP-ID  :  952485

美国|英语

来源: UNT Digital Library

【 摘 要 】

The high vapor pressures of americium (Am) and americium nitride (AmN) are cause for concern in producing nitride ceramic nuclear fuel that contains Am. Along with the problem of Am retention during the sintering phases of current processing methods, are additional concerns of producing a consistent product of desirable homogeneity, density and porosity. Similar difficulties have been experienced during the laboratory scale process development stage of producing metal alloys containing Am wherein compact powder sintering methods had to be abandoned. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop a low-temperature or low–heat fuel fabrication process for the synthesis of Am-containing ceramic fuels. Self-propagating high temperature synthesis (SHS), also called combustion synthesis, offers such an alternative process for the synthesis of Am nitride fuels. Although SHS takes thermodynamic advantage of the high combustion temperatures of these exothermic SHS reactions to synthesize the required compounds, the very fast heating, reaction and cooling rates can kinetically generate extremely fast reaction rates and facilitate the retention of volatile species within the rapidly propagating SHS reaction front. The initial objective of the research program is to use Mn as the surrogate for Am to synthesize a reproducible, dense, high quality Zr-Mn-N ceramic compound. Having determined the fundamental SHS reaction parameters and optimized SHS processing steps using Mn as the surrogate for Am, the technology will be transferred to Idaho National Laboratory to successfully synthesize a high quality Zr-Am-N ceramic fuel.