Ruthenium and technetium are high-yield fission products of uranium that likely form metallic phases in spent nuclear fuel. Solid-state structures of the binary An-Tc alloys are not well characterized. However, the morphologies of some An-Ru compounds, like URu3’s Pm-3m space group, are well characterized. Since ruthenium is often used as a surrogate for technetium, the URu3 alloy serves as a comparable material for UTc3. In this study alloys of URu3 and UTc3 were prepared by vacuum arc-melting solid uranium metal discs with pressed pellets of the ruthenium or technetium metal powder. After annealing at 800 oC for 10+ days, cross-sections of the alloys were studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS) to characterize the growth of microstructures and areas of non-homogeneity, as well as analyze the varying elemental compositions contained within the alloys Structural analysis was performed on homogenous samples using powder x-ray diffraction (PXRD). These PXRD patterns were used to experimentally solve the samples’ solid-state structures. The resulting structural information was used to compare the solid-state structure of UTc3 to the known Pm-3m structure of the URu3 alloy. Furthermore, the Pm-3m structure was investigated for UTc3 by substituting technetium for ruthenium and performing density functional theory (DFT) calculations to optimize the lattice parameters. This theoretical structure was ultimately used to simulate a PXRD pattern which was subsequently compared to the experimental pattern. This study provides valuable information regarding the solid-state structures of Uranium-Technetium alloys compared to uranium-ruthenium alloys and builds techniques to study other An-M alloys.

Investigating the solid-state structure of UTc<sub>3</sub> as it compares to URu<sub>3</sub> through SEM, EDS, and PXRD analysis

ACS Spring 2022

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Investigating the solid-state structure of UTc3 as it compares to URu3 through SEM, EDS, and PXRD analysis

Investigating the solid-state structure of UTc₃ as it compares to URu₃ through SEM, EDS, and PXRD analysis