AVS 66th International Symposium & Exhibition
    Actinides and Rare Earths Focus Topic Tuesday Sessions
       Session AC+AS+LS-TuA

Invited Paper AC+AS+LS-TuA7
Analysis of Aged of Uranium Particles via X-ray Xpectromicroscopy

Tuesday, October 22, 2019, 4:20 pm, Room A215

Session: Forensics, Science and Processing for Nuclear Energy
Presenter: Andrew Duffin, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Authors: A. Duffin, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
J. Ward, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Correspondent: Click to Email
Uranyl fluoride (UO2F2) particles are a common by-product when uranium hexafluoride (UF6), a volatile form of uranium used in industry, is released into air. Uranyl fluoride particles continue to react in the environment, eventually moving towards uranium oxide. Understanding the chemical changes uranyl fluoride takes is important as the chemical state affects how this contaminant is transported in the environment. We employed scanning transmission X-ray microscopy (STXM) to map the chemical changes that occur in single particles of uranyl fluoride, aged under controlled conditions. We have shown that ligand K-edge X-ray absorption spectroscopy can fingerprint uranium chemical species at the nm spatial scale and we have used this specificity to gain insight into the transformation of uranyl fluoride to uranium oxide.