Synthesis and characterisation of Pu-doped zirconolites -(Ca1-xPux)Zr(Ti2-2xFe2x)O7

Substituting Pu(IV) onto the Ca site and using Fe(III) as a charge balancing species, a series of 6 compositions of 239Pu doped zirconolite (of general formula (Ca1-xPux)Zr(Ti2-2xFe2x)O7) have been fabricated, where x = 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.6 and 0.7. Sintered pellets from each of these compositions have been characterised by XRD, SEM, EDX and Raman techniques in order to analyse the change in microstructure and determine the polytype boundaries as the doping level increases, showing that the zirconolite is stable in the natural 2M polytype up until x = 0.3, then adopting the 3T polytype from x = 0.3 to x = 0.4, but from there onwards an increasing degree of phase separation occurs.