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 UO2, UN has a high reactivity in water, however, studies have not considered the significant effect of radiation, which is known to cause corrosion of UO2. This study uses 0.1 M H2O2 to simulate the effects of water radiolysis in order to compare the radiolytic corrosion rates of UO2, UN, and U2N3 thin films at room temperature. X-ray reflectivity was used to investigate the changes in film morphology as a function of H2O2 exposure time, allowing changes in film thickness and roughness to be observed on the Angstrom length-scale. Results showed significant differences between UO2, UN, and U2N3, with corrosion rates of 0.083(3), 0.020(4), and 0.47(8) A/s, respectively, showing that UN corrodes more slowly than UO2 in 0.1 M H2O2.
@article{arxiv.1810.12156,
title = {Comparing the Corrosion of Uranium Nitride and Uranium Dioxide Surfaces with H2O2},
author = {E. Lawrence Bright and S. Rennie and A. Siberry and K. Samani and K. Clarke and D. T. Goddard and R. Springell},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1810.12156},
year = {2018}
}