Plutonium and Americium Aluminate Perovskites

Inorg Chem. 2019 Jul 15;58(14):9118-9126. doi: 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.9b00679. Epub 2019 Jun 27.

Abstract

Both AmAlO3 and PuAlO3 perovskites have been synthesized and characterized using powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and 27Al magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MAS NMR). AmAlO3 perovskite showed a rhombohedral configuration (space group Rc) in agreement with previous studies. The effect of americium α-decay on this material has been followed by XRD and 27Al MAS NMR analyses. In a first step, a progressive increase in the level of disorder in the crystalline phase was detected, associated with a significant crystallographic swelling of the material. In a second step, the crystalline AmAlO3 perovskite was progressively converted into amorphous AmAlO3, with a total amorphization occurring after 8 months and 2 × 1018 α-decays/g. For the first time, PuAlO3 perovskite was synthesized with an orthorhombic configuration (space group Imma), showing an interesting parallel to CeAlO3 and PrAlO3 lanthanide analogues. High-temperature XRD was performed and showed a ImmaRc phase transition occurring between 473 and 573 K. The thermal behavior of Rc PuAlO3 was followed from 573 to 1273 K, and extrapolation of the data suggests that cubic plutonium perovskite should become stable at around 1850 K (RcPmm transition).