Calculation of thermodynamic parameters of U–Pu–N system with carbon and oxygen impurities

Mixed nitride fuels are being considered for advanced FBR, but very little is known about the thermodynamic properties of these fuels. For an overall composition of the nitride fuel with small amounts of oxygen and carbon impurities, thermodynamic properties, e.g. carbon activity and partial pressures of nitrogen, carbon-monoxide, plutonium and uranium, were calculated in present work. These calculations were based on standard Gibbs free energies of the binary compounds, present in this multi-component system (U,Pu)–C–N–O. For an over all composition of the fuel, stable phase-field was determined by minimization of the Gibbs free energy of the system. The fabrication experiences of various workers, reported in literature, have shown that depending on the impurity content, nitride fuel can exist in two phase fields, mono-nitride phase in equilibrium with sesquinitride phase or mono-nitride phase in equilibrium with dioxide phase. Therefore, in present calculations special attention was given to the thermodynamic behavior of these two phase-fields. A comparison of calculated thermodynamic properties indicated that nitride fuel with dioxide as second phase will be superior to the one with sesquinitride.