Hydrolysis reactions of rare-earth and americium mononitrides

Synthesis and Optimization of the Sintering Kinetics of Actinide Nitrides

“…The high vapor pressure of DyN is the primary reason that it has been chosen for these studies. In accordance with the literature review, authors have shown that the electrochemical properties, vaporization behaviors, and nitriding behaviors of DyN and AmN are similar [6,8,30,[45][46][47]. Unfortunately, not all properties for these two materials can be obtained in the reviewed literature in order to make a more complete comparison.…”

“…However, surrogates for actinide nitrides have primarily been considered since the late 1980's when renewed interests in nitride fuels were invoked with the SP-100 space nuclear program and the succeeding (advanced accelerator applications) AAA, AFCI, and GNEP programs [2,5,6,8,30,[43][44][45][46][47][48]. With this timeframe in mind, the effects of nitride surrogates on sintering are inadequately understood because they have been studied less than the other fuels forms.…”

“…Of the reactors listed in the table, the ones able to incorporate nitride fuels include: the Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor (GFR), the Lead-Cooled Fast Reactor (LFR), and the Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor (SFR) [51,52]. The nitrides have been identified for these reactor-types primarily due to their desirable properties such as; high melting temperatures combined with greater actinide densities and greater thermal conductivities when compared to other fuel forms [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. However, due to their propensity for oxidation, handling concerns arise when considering different synthesis techniques and the partial pressure of oxygen is a significant factor in the purity of the nitride materials.…”

“…As seen in Table 2, the fuels have been classified into two primary groups, namely: non-fertile and low-fertile fuels. The fuels which contain no uranium are considered non-fertile fuels because they breed no plutonium (due to the daughter product of U being Pu) and the fuels which contain minimal amounts of uranium are considered low-fertile because they breed little plutonium [5][6][7]. In Table 2 it is seen that candidate non-fertile and low-fertile fuel forms for Generation IV reactor applications are primarily nitride and oxide fuels.…”

“…In Table 2 it is seen that candidate non-fertile and low-fertile fuel forms for Generation IV reactor applications are primarily nitride and oxide fuels. Nitride fuels are favored over the oxide fuels due to their higher density of actinides, lower enrichment, and higher thermal conductivities (by approximately 5-10 times) [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15], leading to lower "burning" temperatures and decreased cladding compatibility concerns. Although the nitrides are more efficient fuel forms, there are some disadvantages associated with them.…”