• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.5
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• pp.731-737
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• 2018

In this research paper, the thermal transport in thorium dioxide is investigated by using nonequilibrium molecular dynamics. The thermal conductivity of bulk thorium dioxide was measured to be 20.8 W/m-K, confirming reported values, and the phonon mean free path was estimated to be between 7 and 8.5 nm at 300 K. It was observed that the thermal conductivity of thorium dioxide shows a strong dependency on temperature; the highest thermal conductivity was estimated to be 77.3 W/m-K at 100 K, and the lowest thermal conductivity was estimated to be 4.3 W/m-K at 1200 K. In addition, by simulating thorium dioxide structures with different lengths at different temperatures, it was identified that short wavelength phonons dominate thermal transport in thorium dioxide at high temperatures, resulting in decreased intrinsic phonon mean free paths and minimal effect of boundary scattering while long wavelength phonons dominate the thermal transport in thorium dioxide at low temperatures.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.10
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• pp.3725-3731
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• 2023

Thorium dioxide (ThO₂)-silicon carbide (SiC) composite fuel pellets were fabricated via the spark plasma-sintering (SPS) method to investigate the role of the addition of SiC in enhancing the thermal conductivity of ThO₂ fuel. SiC particles with an average size of 1㎛ in 10 and 15 vol% were used to manufacture the composite pellets. The changes in the composites' densification, microstructure and thermal conductivity were explored by comparing them with pure ThO₂ pellets. The structural and microstructural characterization of the composite pellets has revealed that SPS could manufacture high-quality composite pellets without having any reaction products or intermetallic. The density measurement by the Archimedes principles and the grain size from the electron back-scattered diffraction (EBSD) analysis has indicated that the composites have higher densities and smaller grain sizes than the pellets without SiC addition. Finally, thermal conductivity as a function of temperature has revealed that sintered ThO₂-SiC composites showed an increase of up to 56% in thermal conductivity compared to pristine ThO₂ pellets.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.270-272
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• 1989

The polymeric species formed on the hydrolysis of Th(IV) from solubility experiments of $ThO_2$ in 0.1M $NaClO_4$ and $Th(OH)_4\;in\;0.5M\;NaClO_4$ were removed by ultrafiltration using 1 nm ultrafilters. The resultant equilibrium concentrations of mono-hydroxy Th(IV) species in solutions between pH 1.5 to 13 were measured by the NAA method. From these data solubility product of thorium dioxide and the stability constants of mono-hydroxy Th(Ⅳ) were determined. The values obtained were log $K_{sp}\;-\;50.76\;{\pm}\;0.08, log\;{\beta}_{1,1}\;12.42\;{\pm}\;0.02,\;log\;{\beta}_{1,2}\;22.46\;{\pm}\;0.15, log\;{\beta}_{1,3}\;34.36\;{\pm}\;0.07,\;log\;{\beta}_{1,4}\;42.58\;{\pm}\;0.08$, which are in good agreement with the values given in the literature. In addition, several dimeric species, $Th_2(OH)_2\;^{6+},\;Th_2(OH)_3\;^{5+} and\;Th_2(OH)_4\;^{4+}$ have been identified.