Publications related to Uranium mining

Atomic level insight into irradiation effects in nuclear fuel materials

Microstructural evolution during in-pile irradiation, radiation damage effects and fission products behavior in UO2 nuclear fuel are key issues in understanding and for the modeling of the performance as well as safety characteristics of nuclear fuels in t ...

EPFL2024

Diagenetic isotope exchange in biocalcites for paleoclimate reconstruction

Deyanira Graciela Cisneros Lazaro

The oxygen isotope compositions of fossil biocalcites, such as foraminifera, bivalves, brachiopods, and belemnites have allowed for reconstructions of sea surface and deep ocean temperatures throughout the Phanerozoic and constitute the most important reco ...

EPFL2024

A Route to Stabilize Uranium(II) and Uranium(I) Synthons in Multimetallic Complexes

Rosario Scopelliti, Marinella Mazzanti, Ivica Zivkovic, Dieuwertje Katelijn Modder

Herein, we report the redox reactivity of a multimetallic uranium complex supported by triphenylsiloxide (−OSiPh3) ligands, where we show that low valent synthons can be stabilized via an unprecedented mechanism involving intramolecular ligand migration. T ...

Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH2023

Implementing Multi-Electron Transfer Strategies in Uranium Chemistry

Dieuwertje Katelijn Modder

In the last decades, the activation of small molecules has attracted increasing attention for their use as cheap and abundant feedstock. Low-oxidation state uranium complexes have displayed high reactivity towards small molecules thanks to their unique pro ...

EPFL2023

Design of an Instrumented Fuel Rod for Intra-pin Neutron Flux Measurements in the CROCUS Experimental Reactor

Andreas Pautz, Vincent Pierre Lamirand, Mathieu Hursin, Thomas Jean-François Ligonnet, Won Dong Shin, Tom Mager

In response to the need for validating high-fidelity deterministic neutronics solvers capable of pin-resolved neutron flux distributions, an instrumented fuel rod was designed for the experimental reactor CROCUS, operated by EPFL’s Laboratory for Reactor P ...

2023

Biostimulation as a sustainable solution for acid neutralization and uranium immobilization post acidic in-situ recovery

Rizlan Bernier-Latmani, Pierre Rossi, Thomas Coral

Major uranium (U) deposits worldwide are exploited by acid leaching, known as 'in-situ recovery' (ISR). ISR involves the injection of an acid fluid into ore-bearing aquifers and the pumping of the resulting metal-containing solution through cation exchange ...

2022

Multi-electron Transfer by U(II) and Masked U(II) Complexes

Marinella Mazzanti

Complexes of uranium in low oxidation state have shown the ability to activate non-reactive small molecules such as N-2. However, the multi-electron transfer required for such activation remains limited in uranium chemistry. Here, we review our recent rese ...

SWISS CHEMICAL SOC2022

Multi-physics modeling of VVERs with high fidelity high-resolution codes

Marianna Papadionysiou

The calculations performed for the design and operation of a Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) are a key factor for their safety analyses. The standard for the computational analysis of NPPs is the so called conventional approach, which relies on coarse mesh diffu ...

EPFL2022

Systematic investigations of uranium carbide composites oxidation from micro- to nano-scale: Application to waste disposal

Nhât-Tân Vuong

The production of radioisotope beams at the ISOLDE (Isotope Separator OnLine DEvice) facility at CERN is achieved by irradiating target materials (e.g. uranium carbides and metal foils) with protons. The materials are usually operated at temperatures above ...

EPFL2021

Design, synthesis, reactivity, and magnetic properties of uranium based oxide and nitride complexes

Luciano Barluzzi

The activation of small molecules is a paramount challenge in modern chemistry. The use of cheap and abundant molecules such as N2, H2, CO2, or CO as energy supplies or as precursors for fine chemicals production is highly desirable. In particular, the onl ...

EPFL2021

Stepwise Reduction of Dinitrogen by a Uranium-Potassium Complex Yielding a U(VI)/U(IV) Tetranitride Cluster

Marinella Mazzanti, Farzaneh Fadaei Tirani, Ivica Zivkovic, Luciano Barluzzi, Nadir Jori

Multimetallic cooperativity is believed to play a key role in the cleavage of dinitrogen to nitrides (N3-), but the mechanism remains ambiguous due to the lack of isolated intermediates. Herein, we report the reduction of the complex [K-2{[U-V(OSi((OBu)-Bu ...

2021

Nanoscale mechanism of UO2 formation through uranium reduction by magnetite

Rizlan Bernier-Latmani, Barbora Bártová, Thomas La Grange, Zezhen Pan

Uranium (U) is a ubiquitous element in the Earth's crust at similar to 2 ppm. In anoxic environments, soluble hexavalent uranium (U(VI)) is reduced and immobilized. The underlying reduction mechanism is unknown but likely of critical importance to explain ...

Nature Research2020

Role of Iron Sulfide Phases in the Stability of Noncrystalline Tetravalent Uranium in Sediments

Rizlan Bernier-Latmani, Luca Loreggian

Uranium (U) in situ bioremediation has been investigated as a cost-effective strategy to tackle U contamination in the subsurface. While uraninite was believed to be the only product of bioreduction, numerous studies have revealed that noncrystalline U(IV) ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2020

Preliminary design and analysis of Liquid Fuel Molten Salt Reactor using multi-physics code GeN-Foam

Carlo Fiorina

In this study, a hypothetical fast spectrum Liquid Fuel Molten Salt Reactor (LFMSR) core is modeled using the multiphysics C++ code GeN-Foam (General Nuclear Foam). GeN-Foam is based on OpenFOAM, a C++ opensource library for solution of continuum mechanics ...

ELSEVIER SCIENCE SA2020

Synthesis, reactivity, and environmental relevance of uranyl(V) complexes

Radmila Faizova

Knowledge of fundamental chemical properties of all environmentally relevant uranium species is essential to understand environmental uranium mobility and develop novel remediation strate-gies. A myriad of uranium(VI) and uranium(IV) compounds has been stu ...

EPFL2020

Development and verification of pin-by-pin homogenized simplified transport solver Tortin for PWR core analysis

Andreas Pautz, Petra Mala

Currently, the pin-by-pin homogenized solvers are a very active research field as they can, unlike the nodal codes, directly predict the local power, while requiring significantly less computational resources than the heterogeneous transport codes. This pa ...

2020

Statistical Burnup Distribution of Moving Pebbles in the High-Temperature Reactor HTR-PM

Andreas Pautz, Jiri Krepel, Fanny Vitullo, Horst-Michael Prasser

In the pebble-bed high-temperature reactor under construction in China, called the HTR-PM, the spherical fuel elements continuously flow downward in the cylindrical core. The burnup of each pebble is checked at the core outlet and, according to the achieve ...

ASME2020

Small molecule activation by multimetallic uranium complexes supported by siloxide ligands

Marinella Mazzanti, Marta Falcone, Luciano Barluzzi

The synthesis and reactivity of uranium compounds supported by the tris-tert-butoxysiloxide ligand is surveyed. The multiple binding modes of the tert-butoxysiloxide ligand have proven very well suited to stabilize highly reactive homo- and heteropolymetal ...

Royal Society of Chemistry2019

Small Molecule Activation by Multimetallic Uranium Complexes

Marta Falcone

The development of new processes for the selective and sustainable transformation of abundant small molecules constitutes one of the major research areas in inorganic and organometallic chemistry. These molecules as CO2, CO, N2 and H2 are abundant reservoi ...

EPFL2019

Facile N-functionalization and strong magnetic communication in a diuranium(v) bis-nitride complex

Marinella Mazzanti, Farzaneh Fadaei Tirani, Ivica Zivkovic, Lucile Sylvie Danielle Chatelain, Luciano Barluzzi

Uranium nitride complexes are of high interest because of their ability to effect dinitrogen reduction and functionalization and to promote magnetic communication, but studies of their properties and reactivity remain rare. Here we have prepared in 73% yie ...

2019