Diffusion of Zr, Ru, Ce, Y, La, Sr and Ba fission products in UO2

Abstract

The diffusivity of the solid fission products (FP) Zr (Zr4+), Ru (Ru4+, Ru3+), Ce (Ce4+), Y (Y3+), La (La3+), Sr (Sr2+) and Ba (Ba2+) by a vacancy mechanism has been calculated, using a combination of density functional theory (DFT) and empirical potential (EP) calculations. The activation energies for the solid fission products are compared to the activation energy for Xe fission gas atoms calculated previously. Apart from Ru, the solid fission products all exhibit higher activation energy than Xe. For all solid FPs except Y3+, the migration of the FP has lower barrier than the migration of a neighboring U atom, making the latter the rate limiting step for direct migration. An indirect mechanism, consisting of two successive migrations around the FP, is also investigated. The calculated diffusivities show that most solid fission products diffuse with rates similar to U self-diffusion. However, Ru, Ba and Sr exhibit faster diffusion than the other solid FPs, with Ru3+ and Ru4+ diffusing even faster than Xe for T<1200K. The diffusivities correlate with the observed fission product solubility in UO2, and the tendency to form metallic and oxide second phase inclusions.