External gelation conditions in fabrication of nitride fuel for transmutation of minor actinides

Iwasa, Toma ; Takano, Masahide 

We have developed the external gelation technology for the fabrication of MAs nitride particles in high-performance heterogeneous fuel. Although the particle fabrication technology using external gelation methods has been developed, there has been almost no study targeting MAs nitrides fuel. Previously study suggested that the size of particle was required to be smaller than 250 m to avoid the degradation of thermophysical properties. The purpose of this study is to optimize the external gelation conditions for spherical gel particle smaller than 500 m because the particle shrank less than half size by calcination and nitridation. The external gelation tests were performed with the viscosity and pressure of dropping solution as parameters. The results show that the smaller particle with higher sphericity was obtained at the higher pressure of 350-500kPa at each viscosity of 30-50cP with positive correlation.