Cm3+ incorporation in La1-xGdxPO4 monazites: a TRLFS and XAFS study

Crystalline ceramic materials show promise as potential waste forms for immobilization of high-level radioactive wastes. Especially for the immobilization of trivalent minor actinides (MA) and plutonium, some ceramic materials such as the lanthanide phosphates (LnPO4) crystallizing in the monazite structure have been envisioned as host materials due to their thermal stability, high radiation tolerance, and chemical durability [1]. Thus, for a reliable long-term safety assessment of nuclear waste repositories for conditioned radioactive waste, a fundamental understanding of the MA incorporation process in these envisioned ceramic matrices is required.
In the present study, the incorporation of the minor actinide Cm3+ in a series of La1-xGdxPO4 (x = 0, 0.2, 0.5, 0.8, 1) monazite solid solutions has been investigated using time-resolved laser fluorescence- (TRLFS) and Cm L3-edge x-ray absorption fine-structure spectroscopy (XAFS).
The Cm3+ excitation spectra obtained with the TRLFS method of the pure LaPO4 and GdPO4 end-members (Figure 1) show four well-resolved peaks corresponding to the 4-fold splitting of the Cm3+ ground state. The highly resolved ground-state splitting indicates the presence of only one, very well-defined, crystalline environment for the incorporated Cm3+ cation in the La and Gd monazite end-members. The situation changes when examining the solid solution compositions (La0.8Gd0.2PO4, La0.5Gd0.5PO4, and La0.2Gd0.8PO4) where the complete loss of the splitting fine-structure and the broadening of the excitation peaks indicate a decrease of the short-range order in these solid solutions.
The fitting of the first coordination shell of our Cm L3 XAFS data (Figure 2) for LaPO4, La0.5Gd0.5PO4, and GdPO4, indicate a contraction of the Cm-O distance when going from the larger LaPO4 monazite toward GdPO4 (see Table 1). In addition the Debye-Waller (DW, σ2) factor (which is an indicator for thermal and structural disorder) decreases substantially from 0.0079 Å2 in LaPO4 to 0.004 Å2 in GdPO4, while an increase is observed for the solid-solution composition (0.0112 Å2). The shortening of the Cm···O bond distance can be understood by the decreasing size of the monazite unit cell when going from the larger La3+-bearing host toward the smaller GdPO4. The differences in the DW factors between the monazite end-members can be explained when examining our previously obtained results for Eu3+ incorporation in LnPO4 monazites [2]. Here we could show that a larger mismatch between host and dopant radii causes a larger distortion of the monazite crystal lattice around the trivalent dopant. The cation radii of nine-fold coordinated La3+, Cm3+, and Gd3+ are 121.6 Å [3], 114.6 Å [4], and 110.7 Å [3], respectively. Thus, the larger mismatch of host and dopant radii in Cm3+-doped LaPO4 could explain the larger DW factor than obtained for Cm3+ incorporation in GdPO4. The large DW factor obtained for La0.5Gd0.5PO4 in comparison to the monazite end-members is in concordance with the excitation line broadening observed for the monazite solid solutions in our Cm3+ excitation spectra (Figure 1), implying an increasing disordering of the monazite crystal structure. In our previous work investigating the incorporation of Eu3+ in La1-xGdxPO4 monazites [5], the systematic excitation line broadening could be attributed to and increasing broadening of the Eu∙∙∙O bond distance distribution in the synthetic solid solution series when going from the pure end-members with very well-defined Eu∙∙∙O distances toward the La0.5Gd0.5PO4 composition.

Our spectroscopic results obtained in the present study show that Cm3+ is substituted for the host cation sites in all investigated monazites. Although the spectroscopic data suggest a disordering of the monazite solid solution series due to less explicit Ln∙∙∙O bond distances in the mixed solids, the spectroscopic investigations also imply that no preferential incorporation of dopants on host cation sites with similarly sized cation radii occurs, which is of great importance when considering the performance of monazite materials as immobilization matrices for highly radioactive actinide compounds.

[1] G. R. Lumpkin (2006) “Ceramic waste forms for actinides.” Elements 2: 365-372.
[2] N. Huittinen et al. (submitted) Using Eu3+ as an atomic probe to investigate the local environment in LaPO4 GdPO4 monazite end-members.
[3] R. D. Shannon (1976) Revised effective ionic radii and systematic studies of interatomic distances
in halides and chalcogenides. Acta Cryst. A32, 751–767.
[4] F. H. David and V. Vokhmin (2003) Thermodynamic properties of some tri- and tetravalent actinide aquo ions. New J. Chem., 27, 1627–1632.
[5] N. Huittinen et al. (submitted) Structural incorporation of Eu3+ in La1-xGdxPO4 monazite solid solutions: A combined spectroscopic and computational study.