About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
Materials in Nuclear Energy Systems (MiNES) 2025
|
| Symposium
|
Materials in Nuclear Energy Systems (MiNES) 2025
|
| Presentation Title |
Synthesis of Uranium Dinitride by Ammonolysis of Uranium Tetrafluoride |
| Author(s) |
Scarlett Widgeon Paisner, Hannah K Patenaude, Scott S Parker, Edward J Lahoda, Antoine J Claisse, Joshua T White |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Scarlett Widgeon Paisner |
| Abstract Scope |
Uranium mononitride (UN) is a promising candidate fuel for light water reactors and microreactors due to the high uranium density and thermal conductivity. UN is typically fabricated using a carbothermic reduction nitridation (CTRN) process, which used UO2 and graphite as the starting material and requires vacuum conditions at high temperature. Using this process, oxygen and carbon impurities remain in the UN material. While CTRN is feasible at the R&D scale, such demanding processing conditions at the commercial scale are challenging, and therefore other synthesis routes are being considered, such as ammonolysis of uranium tetrafluoride (UF4). This talk will discuss synthesis conditions required to fabricate uranium dinitride (UN2) from UF4 under ammonia gas, and the conversion of UN2 to UN by further heat treatment. The resulting powders will be analyzed by X-ray diffraction to determine the purity as a function of synthesis conditions. The impacts of successful synthesis may contribute greatly to the realization of commercial use of UN in future reactor designs. |
| Proceedings Inclusion? |
Undecided |