Thermochemical modeling of nuclear fuel and the effects of oxygen potential buffers

In this work, the elemental composition of the fuel is obtained from a burnup calculation and the temperature and pressure calculated with a fuel performance code. An estimate of the oxygen potential of fuel is calculated with Gibbs energy minimization. The results are compared against experimental data from the literature. The significance of the UMoO6 compound and its buffering effect on the oxygen potential is emphasized.