2010 年 9 巻 1 号 p. 21-28
It is important to understand the behavior of fission products (FPs) for the evaluation of fuel performance. For example, in high-burnup oxide fuels, some FPs dissolve in the fuel matrix and others form oxide or metallic inclusions, which would affect the physical and chemical properties of the fuels. Here, we investigated the thermal conductivity (λ) of oxide inclusions; in particular, we focused on Cs-Mo-O and (Sr or Ba)-Mo-O ternary systems. The λ value of Cs2MoO4 is quite low (around 0.6 Wm−1 K−1 at 300 K) compared with that of UO2 (around 8.5 Wm−1 K−1 at 300 K). In addition, we found that the λ value of (Sr or Ba)MoO3 is approximately 10 times higher than that of (Sr or Ba)MoO4. This high λ value of (Sr or Ba)MoO3 is due to not only a high electronic contribution but also an intrinsically high lattice thermal conductivity (λlat). This high λlat could be explained using the general lattice thermal conductivity theory; that is, a strong interatomic bonding within a simple crystal structure is realized in (Sr or Ba)MoO3, leading to an exceptionally high λlat compared with that of (Sr or Ba)MoO4.