RECALCULATION OF OXYGEN ISOTOPE FRACTIONATION OF URANIUM TRIOXIDE

Abstract

Uranium is an element with a large radius and atomic mass, so its oxides are consid-ered to be of very low δ~(18)O value at the bottom of the ~(18)O enrichment table for minerals.The oxygen isotope fractionation between uranium dioxide, uranium trioxide and water hasbeen calculated by Hattori & Halas using force constant and low temperature heatcapacity, which is a rare example for spectrum-heat capacity model (SHCM). But onecould find some problems after detailed analysis of the calculated results. The force con-stants of uranium oxides are listed in table 1. Compared with the force constants of