Bright, EL, Rennie, S, Siberry, A, Samani, K, Clarke, K, Goddard, DT & Springell, R, 2019, ‘Comparing the corrosion of uranium nitride and uranium dioxide surfaces with H2O2’. Journal of Nuclear Materials, vol 518., pp. 202-207
Uranium mononitride, UN, is considered a potential accident tolerant fuel due to its high uranium density, high thermal conductivity, and high melting point. Compared with the relatively inert UO
2
, UN has a high reactivity in water, however, studies have not considered the significant effect of radiation, which is known to cause corrosion of UO
2
. This study uses 0.1 M H
2
O
2
to simulate the effects of water radiolysis in order to compare the radiolytic corrosion rates of UO
2
, UN, and U
2
N
3
thin films at room temperature. X-ray reflectivity was used to investigate the changes in film morphology as a function of H
2
O
2
exposure time, allowing changes in film thickness and roughness to be observed on the Ångstrom length-scale. Results showed significant differences between UO
2
, UN, and U
2
N
3
, with corrosion rates of 0.083(3), 0.020(4), and 0.47(8) Å/s, respectively, showing that UN corrodes more slowly than UO
2
in 0.1 M H
2
O
2
.
