Morphological properties of ThO2-UO2 powder synthesized via NSD-sol gel process with different weight percentage of thorium

Our previous studies have demonstrated that sinterable mixed ThO2-UO2 nanopowders can be prepared by nonionic structure directing (NSD) sol-gel process, using hydrated thorium nitrate and hydrated uranyl nitrate as the starting materials. This synthesizing route yields the well crystalline nano-sized mixed powder with relatively high surface area. In this study nanocrystalline thorium/uranium mixed oxide with different weight percentage of ThO2 was synthesized through this procedure, utilizing TritonX100, and Polysorbare 80, as two differernt nonionic surfactant agents. Prepared powders were subjected to morphological analyses. The products were undergone pressing and sintering. SEM images of the pellets exhibited good sinterability of the powders below 16000C. It has been shown that the prepared powders in this research have a considerable potential for producing thorium/uranium mixed oxide powders which subsequently could be sintered at a relatively low temperature and in a short time. The pellet made by the powder sample synthesized utilizing TritonX100 exhibited fairly better densification in both pressing and sintering stages and finer grain size. Pellets made by ThO2 50%-UO2 50% synthesized powder showed more uniform grain size distribution.

Keywords:

ThO2 , UO2 , Nanoparticles , Sol-gel , Sintering