Synthesis of refractory-oxide materials by skull melting
Skull melting is a cold-crucible technique for obtaining high-purity melts of refractory materials, particularly oxides. This technique has been used to synthesize high-purity minerals and to prepare single crystals of uraninite (UO/sub 2/) and thorianite (ThO/sub 2/) directly from the melt. A description of the crystal-growing technique is discussed. Los Alamos is also interested in developing the skull-melting technique to zone-refine spent UO/sub 2/ nuclear reactor fuel pins. Since metallic fission products and actinides will behave as solute impurities in a UO/sub 2/ solvent, the success of the zone-refining process will depend on the distribution of the impurities between molten and solid UO/sub 2/. An effective distribution coefficient for Y/sub 2/O/sub 3/ segregated between molten and solid UO/sub 2/ was experimentally determined by zone melting. An effective distribution coefficient of k = 0.75 +- 0.05 was obtained, in good agreement with an equilibrium value of k/sub 0/ = 0.6, estimated from the Y/sub 2/O/sub 3/-UO/sub 2/ phase diagram.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-36
- OSTI ID:
- 6267617
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-83-1348; CONF-830508-19; ON: DE83012676
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 163. Electrochemical Society meeting, San Francisco, CA, USA, 8 May 1983
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
SPENT FUELS
ZONE REFINING
THORIUM OXIDES
CRYSTAL GROWTH
URANIUM DIOXIDE
FUEL PINS
MELTING
MONOCRYSTALS
SYNTHESIS
YTTRIUM OXIDES
ACTINIDE COMPOUNDS
CHALCOGENIDES
CRYSTALS
ENERGY SOURCES
FUEL ELEMENTS
FUELS
MATERIALS
NUCLEAR FUELS
OXIDES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS
PROCESSING
REACTOR COMPONENTS
REACTOR MATERIALS
REFINING
SEPARATION PROCESSES
THORIUM COMPOUNDS
TRANSITION ELEMENT COMPOUNDS
URANIUM COMPOUNDS
URANIUM OXIDES
YTTRIUM COMPOUNDS
360201* - Ceramics
Cermets
& Refractories- Preparation & Fabrication