Thermochemistry of Ruthenium Oxyhydroxide Species and Their Impact on Volatile Speciations in Severe Nuclear Accident Conditions

Abstract

Literature thermodynamic data of ruthenium oxyhydroxides reveal large uncertainties in some of the standard enthalpies of formation, motivating the use of high-level relativistic correlated quantum chemical methods to reduce the level of discrepancies. Reaction energies leading to the formation of all possible oxyhydroxide species RuOx(OH)y(H2O)z have been calculated for a series of reactions combining DFT (TPSSh-5%HF) geometries and partition functions, CCSD(T) energies extrapolated to the complete basis set limits. The highly accurate ab initio thermodynamic data were used as input data of thermodynamic equilibrium computations to derive the speciation of gaseous ruthenium species in the temperature, pressure and concentration conditions of severe nuclear accidents occurring in pressurized water reactors. At temperatures lower than 1000 K, gaseous ruthenium tetraoxide is the dominating species, between 1000 and 2000 K ruthenium trioxide becomes preponderant, whereas at higher temperatures gaseous ruthenium oxide, dioxide and even Ru in gaseous phase are formed. Although earlier studies predicted the formation of oxyhydroxides in significant quantities, the use of highly accurate ab initio thermodynamic data for ruthenium gaseous species leads to a more reliable inventory of gaseous ruthenium species in which gaseous oxyhydroxide ruthenium molecules are formed only in negligible amounts.