Trivalent Actinide Incorporation into Zirconium(IV) oxide – Eu³⁺ and Cm³⁺ luminescence spectroscopic studies

In a final repository for spent nuclear fuel (SNF), the mobilization of actinides from the UO2 matrix is a great concern for safety considerations. The SNF rods are surrounded by zircalloy cladding material, which, similarly to the UO2 waste matrix, has a very low solubility in aqueous solution. Despite the very good corrosion resistance of the cladding material, corrosion and dissolution are expected to occur together with the leaching of radionuclides from the SNF over geological timescales. Therefore, the dissolution of zircalloy and the formation of a corrosion layer mainly composed of zirconia (ZrO2) on the cladding surface may be accompanied by reactions with dissolved, long-lived radionuclides from the SNF matrix.
At ambient conditions zirconium oxide has a monoclinic (m) crystal structure. However, the incorporation of metal cations can stabilize the high-temperature zirconia phases, i.e. the tetragonal (t) and the cubic (c) phases, leading to the formation of stable structures at ambient conditions.[1] Such phase transformation may be expected when actinides from the SNF become incorporated and thus, immobilized within the zirconia corrosion layer.
In the present study the incorporation of aliovalent actinides in zirconia, and their stabilizing influence on the crystal structure, have been investigated. The crystallinity and structural properties of the resultant actinide-doped zirconia solids were investigated with powder x-ray diffraction (PXRD), while the local structure around the incorporated dopant was studied with laser-induced luminescence spectroscopy (TRLFS). Cm3+ and Eu3+ were taken as representatives for the trivalent actinides.
The PXRD results of calcined Eu3+ doped zirconia samples show that a systematic transformation of the monoclinic to the cubic phase via the tetragonal structure occurs as a function of increasing Eu3+ doping (Fig. 1, left) whilst the Eu3+ TRLFS results show a 7F1, 7F2 emission band splitting corresponding to a low symmetry environment despite the cubic bulk symmetry (Fig. 1, middle).

The Cm3+ co-doped luminescence spectra show strong red-shifts of the emission spectra in the cubic bulk system with a peak maximum of 643.9 nm (Fig. 1, right) which have been observed before.[2] Both spectroscopic methods point towards a strongly distorted local structure, caused by the effect of oxygen vacancies and lattice stress induced by the largely oversized dopant ions.