Actinide Nanosystems

Dr. Damien Hudry at the Institute for Transuranium Elements (ITU) in Karlsruhe is developing synthetic approaches to prepare well-defined actinide nano systems (in particular oxides) to establish an understanding of nano size effects in these materials, e.g. on their magnetic properties or their migration behavior in the environment. As an essential first step in this direction we have studied the correlation between synthesis conditions and the size and shape distribution of ThO₂, UO₂, NpO₂ and PuO₂ nanocrystals.

Fig. 1: HAADF-STEM and HRTEM characterization of well-defined UO₂ nanocrystals.

Fig. 2: ThO₂ nanocrystals prepared following different experimental procedures.

Details of this work have been published at

• D. Hudry, C. Apostolidis, O. Walter, T. Gouder, A. Janssen, E. Courtois, C. Kübel, D. Meyer, "Synthesis of Transuranium-Based Nanocrystals via the Thermal Decomposition of Actinyl Nitrates" RSC Advances, 2013, 3, 18271-18274, DOI:10.1039/C3RA41577E.
• D. Hudry, C. Apostolidis, O. Walter, T. Gouder, E. Courtois, C. Kübel, D. Meyer, "Controlled Synthesis of Thorium and Uranium Oxide Nanocrystals", Chem. Eur. J, 2013, 19(17), 5297–5305; DOI: 10.1002/chem.201203888.
• D. Hudry, C. Apostolidis, T. Gouder, E. Courtois, C. Kübel, O. Walter, "Non-Hydrolytic Synthesis of Isotropic and Anisotropic Actinide Oxides Nanocrystals", Chem. Eur. J., 2012, 18(27), 8283-8287; DOI: 10.1002/chem.201200513.