GSA Connects 2022 meeting in Denver, Colorado

Paper No. 155-9
Presentation Time: 10:30 AM

HIGH TEMPERATURE CALORIMETRY STUDY OF SYNTHETIC URANIUM OXALATE PHASES


BARTH, Brodie1, SZYMANOWSKI, Jennifer E.1 and BURNS, Peter C.2, (1)Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, (2)Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Notre Dame, 301 Stinson-Remick Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556

Recent discovery of uranyl oxalate minerals within legacy uranium mines (Kampf et al. 2020) has spurred interest within environmental mobility, separations chemistry, and the nuclear fuel cycle. In this work, synthetic phases of uroxite ([(UO2)2(C2O4)(OH)2(H2O)2]·H2O) and metauroxite (α-[(UO2)2(C2O4)(OH)2(H2O)2]) were produced and studied using high-temperature drop-solution calorimetry to determine the enthalpies of formation from elements for these phases. Additionally, uranium oxalate hexahydrate (U(C2O4)2·6H2O) was synthesized, and its enthalpy of formation was determined via the same method in order to compare the stabilities of tetravalent and hexavalent uranium oxalates. This data can be used to aid in predicting the speciation and migration of actinide oxalate compounds within environmental models and investigate trends of stability across the actinide series.