What is uranium disilicide?

Uranium disilicide is a silicide of uranium. There has been recent interest in using uranium disilicide as an alternative to uranium dioxide for fuel in nuclear reactors.

Crystal structure

Uranium disilicide has a tetragonal structure.

Advantages

The advantages of Uranium disilicide are a higher percentage of uranium and higher thermal conductivity. A direct replacement of UO2 with USi2 should enable a reactor to generate more energy.

Uses

Uranium disilicide is used as a high energy fuel.

Production

Uranium silicide pellets have been produced by powder metallurgy techniques as part of an accident-tolerant fuel concept. The process to produce these pellets has undergone extensive optimization to yield reproducible pellets with a sintered density of greater than 94% theoretical density (11.47 g/cm3). To produce pellets of this density, the particle size distribution of the source powder was optimized.