A novel phase transition measurement on SrNb2O6(s)

Fission products strontium and niobium form ternary oxides during burning of oxide fuels in an operating nuclear reactor at high burn-ups. Evaluation of thermodynamic functions of these ternary oxides are therefore important for assessment of fission product interactions and modelling of fuel behaviour during high burn-up. Furthermore, thermodynamic data of these oxides are also of relevance for the computation of phase diagram and to assess phase stability of pseudo-ternary systems BaO-SrO-Nb2O5, SrO-Nb2O5-TaO5 etc., in which some of the compounds are potential candidate materials for microwave ceramics with high dielectric constant, electro-optic, pyroelectric and piezoelectric devices. The system Sr-Nb-O contains many ternary oxides out of which we have measured heat capacity for the compound SrNb2O6 in the present study