Kinetic study on the grain growth of PuO2 nanocrystals

Daniel Bouëxière; Karin Popa; Olaf Walter; Marco Cologna

doi:10.1039/c8ra10430a

Kinetic study on the grain growth of PuO₂ nanocrystals

RSC Adv. 2019 Feb 25;9(12):6542-6547. doi: 10.1039/c8ra10430a. eCollection 2019 Feb 22.

Authors

Daniel Bouëxière¹, Karin Popa¹, Olaf Walter¹, Marco Cologna¹

Affiliation

¹ European Commission, DG Joint Research Centre, JRC-Karlsruhe P. O. Box 2340 76125 Karlsruhe Germany olaf.walter@ec.europa.eu.

Abstract

Kinetic measurements on the grain growth of PuO₂ nano-crystals are presented. On the basis of isothermal XRD measurements at temperatures of 820 °C, 900 °C, 1000 °C, and 1100 °C the activation energy for the crystallite growth of PuO₂ nanopowder is determined as 351(5) kJ mol^-1 in the temperature range from 820 to 1000 °C. Modelling shows that in this T range growth happens likely through surface diffusion.