Solid solubility and thermal expansion studies of uranium-europium mixed oxides

Uranium-europium mixed oxides (U1−yEuy)O2−x (y = 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.65, 0.7, 0.75, 0.8) were prepared by citrate gel-combustion synthesis and characterized by using X-ray diffraction (XRD). The terminal solid solubility of EuO1.5 in UO2 is in the composition range 60-65 mol% EuO1.5. The coefficients of thermal expansions at 1973 K for (U1−yEuy)O2−x (y = 0.2, 0.4, 0.6) measured by using high-temperature X-ray diffraction (HTXRD) were found to be 15.80, 14.81 and 14.30 × 10−6 K−1 respectively.