Thermodynamics of the O-U system. I - Oxygen chemical potential critical assessment in the UO2-U3O8 composition range

A critical assessment of oxygen chemical potential of UO_2+x, U₄O₉ and U₃O₈ oxide non-stoichiometric phases as well as of diphasic related domains has been performed in order to build up primary input data files used in a further optimization procedure of thermodynamic and phase diagram data for the uranium-oxygen system in the UO₂-UO₃ composition range. Owing to the fact that original data are very numerous, more than 500 publications, a twofold process is used for the assessment - (i) first a critical selection of data is performed for each method of measurement together with a careful estimate of their uncertainties, (ii) second a reduction of the total number of data on the basis of a chart with fixed intervals of temperature and composition that allows a comparison to be made of the results from the various experiments. Results are presented for chemical potentials of oxygen with their associated uncertainties.