Kinetics of the high temperature oxygen exchange reaction on 238PuO2 powder

Abstract Oxygen exchange reactions performed on PuO 2 suggest the reaction is influenced by at least three mechanisms: an internal chemical reaction, surface mobility of active species/defects, and surface exchange of gaseous oxygen with lattice oxygen. Activation energies for the surface mobility and internal chemical reaction are presented. Determining which mechanism is dominant appears to be a complex function including at least specific surface area and temperature. Thermal exposure may also impact the oxygen exchange reaction by causing reductions in the specific surface area of PuO 2 . Previous CeO 2 surrogate studies exhibit similar behavior, confirming that CeO 2 is a good qualitative surrogate for PuO 2 , in regards to the oxygen exchange reaction. Comparison of results presented here with previous work on the PuO 2 oxygen exchange reaction allows complexities in the previous work to be explained. These explanations allowed new conclusions to be drawn, many of which confirm the conclusions presented here.