An attempt to correlate ion irradiation behaviour and chemical durability of titanate- and zirconate-based ceramics

H. Larguem (1) , P. Trocellier (2) , I. Draganic , S. Poissonnet (2)

1 LGE - Laboratoire Géomatériaux et Environnement
2 SRMP - Service de recherches de métallurgie physique

Titanate and zirconate samples from perovskite and pyrochlore families have been submitted to low energy heavy ion irradiation in order to pre-damage their crystalline structure. Samples irradiated below or near their amorphisation threshold were then leached in deionised water at 90 degrees C in static mode while samples irradiated above their amorphisation threshold were leached at 100 degrees C in dynamic mode. Below the amorphisation threshold, only slight effects of the pre-irradiation have been found on the chemical durability of titanate and zirconate from the perovskite family. Above the amorphisation threshold, perovskite surfaces exhibit a stronger hydration and an increase of the growth kinetics of secondary phases identified as TiOOH and ZrOOH compounds mainly. The pre-irradiated pyrochlore (Nd(2)Zr(2)O(7)) exhibits both a higher hydration degree and a higher Nd-Zr surface co-enrichment due to the destabilization of their network by the pre-irradiation. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

H. Larguem, P. Trocellier, I. Draganic, S. Poissonnet. An attempt to correlate ion irradiation behaviour and chemical durability of titanate- and zirconate-based ceramics. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms, 2008, 266 (12-13), pp.3186--3189. ⟨10.1016/j.nimb.2008.03.223⟩. ⟨hal-00693575⟩