Further development of nuclear power is essential for sustained development of society. Uraninite (UO2) is the major fuel material used in nuclear power generation. Challenges, however, exists for processing bulk uraninite. In the preparation fuel pellets, bulk uraninite has to be sintered at 1500 � 1700 oC. The sintering temperature can be greatly reduced down to 500 � 600 oC by using uraninite nanoparticles. Here we present a new method for synthesizing uraninite nanoparticles from uranyl salt at 300 oC in triethylene glycol (TEG). As shown in the transmission electron micrograph (TEM) in Figure 1a, the synthesized uraninite are single-crystal nanoparticles with an average diameter of 3.5(�0.5) nm. The lattice fringes shown by TEM have an interplanar spacing of 0.32 nm, corresponding to the (111) faces in the face-centered cubic (fcc) UO2. As shown in Figure 1b, powder X-ray diffraction confirms the standard (fcc) structure of the uraninite nanoparticles. This new synthesis method differs from previous methods in that organic molecules oleic or strong ?-irradiation was used, so it's more environment friendly.

Fast synthesis of uranium dioxide nanoparticles in polar solvent

246th National Meeting (2013)

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