Say the word "crystals" - and hardly anyone will think about nuclear fuel. Is that Eric Burgett . A professor at the University of Idaho is trying to create pure single crystal uranium and uranium oxide in his laboratory and sincerely believes that these crystals will help produce more efficient fuel for nuclear reactors.
Burgett and his team of graduate students have successfully produced cerium oxide crystals as a practice (cerium can be used as a non-radioactive surrogate for uranium or plutonium). The team showed off their first uranium oxide crystal in June at an RISE research event in Pocatello.
“The single crystal allows researchers to test and study material in its simplest form,” says Burgett.
For the first time, Burgett became interested in crystals and their potential in the field of nuclear fuel, as a graduate student at the Georgia Institute of Technology .
He grew a crystal of zinc oxide for use in neutron detectors. After that, he began experimenting with crystals of uranium oxide and plutonium.
In 2010, he was a member of a team that won a tender from the U.S. Department of Energy allowing the production of uranium oxide single crystals.
Scientists have long studied the physical characteristics of uranium oxide - the main fuel of nuclear reactors. However, they considered mainly fuel granules of uranium oxide, consisting of several crystallites randomly mixed together, and the microstructure of which can vary from batch to batch. This diversity makes the competition an attempt to predict what is actually happening in the reactor.
“About 95% of the crystals that make up uranium oxide are randomly oriented. No order, ”says Burgette. “How can you accurately simulate a batch of crystals when randomness plays a role?” If you grow crystals, you can. We will study a single crystal of uranium or uranium oxide and find out how heat passes through it. This will give us a basis for understanding what is happening with the material and an understanding of how complex crystal structures work.
To make crystals, Burgett and his team crushed the fuel pellets allocated by INL and then heated them in the oven of the RISE building. As soon as the crystals grew, they were removed, inspected and polished. In the course of multi-day experiments, the crystals with atoms were precisely aligned. After that, you can begin to study how heat passes through it.
“Our goal is to create safe fuel for a safe reactor,” says Burgett.
Researchers at INL are delighted with Burgette's work and plan to buy crystals of uranium and uranium oxide. They will also subject the crystals to various tests to better understand how the material behaves, according to Rory Kennedy, an INL spokesman. Understanding is the key to producing better fuel.
“The more you understand the material, the better you do it,” Kennedy says. “These single crystals will allow us to understand uranium and uranium oxide at an elementary level.”
Kennedy also noted that few people grow crystals in this way, which means that Burgett's research is exceptional in its own way.
Initiatives to equip homes and appliances with safe nuclear reactors are even being carried out by NASA.
The article is based on materials .
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