Physics Commons^™

Solution-Based Synthesis Of Nitride Fuels, Kenneth Czerwinski, Thomas Hartmann

Fuels Campaign (TRP)

A wide variety of fuel concepts are considered for advanced reactor technology including metals, metal oxides or metal nitrides as solid solutions or composite materials. Nitride fuels have appropriate properties for advanced fuels including high thermal conductivity, thermal stability, solid-state solubility of actinides, fissile metal density, and suitable neutronic properties. A drawback of nitride fuels involves their synthesis. A key parameter for preparing oxide fuels is the precipitation step in the sol-gel process. For nitride fuels, the current synthetic route is carbothermic reduction from the oxide to the nitride. This process step is based on solid phase reactions and for …