Ceramic Hosts for Fission Products Immobilization

Natural spinel, perovskite and zirconolite rank among the most leach resistant of mineral forms. They also have a strong affinity for a large number of other elements and including actinides. Specimens of natural perovskite and zirconolite were radioisotope dated and found to have survived at least 2 billion years of natural process while still remain their loading of uranium and thorium . Developers of the Synroc waste form recognized and exploited the capability of these minerals to securely immobilize TRU elements in high-level waste . However, the Synroc process requires a relatively uniform input and hot pressing equipment to produce the waste form. It is desirable to develop alternative approaches to fabricate these durable waste forms to immobilize the radioactive elements. One approach is using a high temperature process to synthesize these mineral host phases to incorporate the fission products in their crystalline structures. These mineral assemblages with immobilized fission products are then isolated in a durable high temperature glass for periods measured on a geologic time scale. This is a long term research concept and will begin with the laboratory synthesis of the pure spinel (MgAl2O4), perovskite (CaTiO3) and zirconolite (CaZrTi2O7) from their constituent oxides. High temperature furnace and/or thermal plasma will be used for the synthesis of these ceramic host phases. Nonradioactive strontium oxide will be doped into these ceramic phases to investigate the development of substitutional phases such as Mg1-xSrxAl2O4, Ca1-xSrxTiO3 and Ca1-xSrxZrTi2O7. X-ray diffraction will be used to establish the crystalline structures of the pure ceramic hosts and the substitution phases. Scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray analysis (SEM-EDX) will be performed for product morphology and fission product surrogates distribution in the crystalline hosts. The range of strontium doping is planned to reach the full substitution of the divalent metal ions, Mg and Ca, in the ceramic host phases. The immobilization of rear earth (lanthanide series) fission products in these ceramic host phases will also be studied this year. Cerium oxide is chosen to represent the rear earth fission product for substitution studies in spinel, perovskite and zirconolite ceramic hosts. Cerium has +3 and +4 oxidation states and it can replace some of the trivalent or tetravalent host ions to produce the substitution ceramics such as MgAl2-xCexO4, CaTi1-xCexO3, CaZr1-xCexTi2O7 and CaZrTi2-xCexO7. X-ray diffraction analysis will be used to compare the crystalline structures of the pure ceramic hosts and the substitution phases. SEM-EDX analysis will be used to study the Ce distribution in the ceramic host phases. The range of cerium doping is planned to reach the full substitution of the trivalent or tetravalent ions, Al, Ti and Zr, in the ceramic host phases