Peterson Miroslava, Riley Brian J, Lu Xiaonan, Yano Kayla H, Mukhopadhyay Semanti, Leavy Ian I, Nickerson Ethan K, Seffens Robert J, Du Jincheng, Miller Kyle D, Saal James E
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington 99334, United States.
University of North Texas, Denton, Texas 76203, United States.
ACS Omega. 2025 Jul 22;10(30):33524-33535. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.5c03993. eCollection 2025 Aug 5.
The development of nuclear waste forms for both existing and future nuclear wastes is critical to ensuring global environmental safety. This study focuses on waste management from molten salt reactors, where fuel exists in a salt form and could be processed in real time for the removal of neutron poisons such as xenon isotopes (e.g., Xe) and rare earth elements (REEs, e.g., Sm). To ensure safe, stable, and long-term disposal in geological repositories, REEs must be incorporated into a durable waste form. Iron-phosphate glasses are a promising candidate due to their low melting points, high chemical durability, and their ability to incorporate high concentrations of REEs. In this study, we successfully prepared iron-phosphate glass waste forms with high Nd loadings (up to 37 mass %) in batch sizes ranging from small (23 g) to large (1600 g). The resulting materials contained up to 75 mass % NdPO, contributing to their mechanical resilience and exceptional chemical durability. These findings highlight the potential of iron-phosphate glasses as high-efficiency, chemically durable waste forms and demonstrate the successful transition from theoretical design to scaled-up production.
为现有和未来的核废料开发核废料固化体对于确保全球环境安全至关重要。本研究聚焦于熔盐反应堆的废料管理，在熔盐反应堆中，燃料以盐的形式存在，并且可以实时处理以去除诸如氙同位素（例如Xe）和稀土元素（REEs，例如Sm）等中子毒物。为了确保在地质处置库中进行安全、稳定和长期的处置，稀土元素必须被纳入一种耐用的废料固化体中。磷酸铁玻璃因其熔点低、化学耐久性高以及能够容纳高浓度稀土元素而成为一种很有前景的候选材料。在本研究中，我们成功制备了高钕负载量（高达37质量%）的磷酸铁玻璃废料固化体，批量从小（23克）到 大（1600克）不等。所得材料含有高达75质量%的磷酸钕，这有助于提高其机械韧性和卓越的化学耐久性。这些发现凸显了磷酸铁玻璃作为高效、化学耐久性好的废料固化体的潜力，并展示了从理论设计到规模化生产的成功转变。
