Comment on the paper "Partitioning of selected fission products from irradiated oxide fuel induced by thermal treatment"

In a recent paper in Journal of Nuclear Materials, Shcherbina et al. reported a study of the e®ect of temperature on the release of ¯ssion products from oxide fuel using an out-of-pile heating device coupled to an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer. The work was performed on so-called Simfuel, simulating reactor fuel with 6 at% burnup, as well as irradiated fuel from power reactors, the latter containing volatile fission products that are not present in Simfuel such as iodine and cesium. The specimens were heated in inert atmosphere (argon gas) in the sampled state as well as after oxidation at 500 ±C. The results show remarkable observations that we will comment upon in this letter, particularly (i) the very low temperature (instant) release for iodine, (ii) the relatively high temperature at which cesium release starts, (iii) the effect of oxidation on the release of molybdenum, and (iv) the release of uranium under reducing conditions in the range 1400-1600 ±C.

KONINGS Rudy;  BENES Ondrej;  COLLE Jean-Yves;  VAN UFFELEN Paul;  WISS Thierry; 

2014-04-10

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

JRC81488

0022-3115,   

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022311513012725,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC81488,   

10.1016/j.jnucmat.2013.11.035,