A potential wasteform for Cs immobilization: synthesis, structure determination, and aqueous durability of Cs2TiNb6O18

Cs2TiNb6O18 is a potential ceramic wasteform for the long-term immobilization of radioactive cesium. Cs2TiNb6O18 was synthesized using the aqueous precursor method and a solid-state reaction, and its crystal structure was determined from the Rietveld refinement of synchrotron X-ray and neutron powder diffraction data. The structure is a pyrochlore analogue, space group P3̅m1 with Cs in 9-fold coordination. The calculated bond valence sum from analysis of neutron diffraction data of 0.84 and high coordination number suggest that Cs has a strong bonding environment. The chemical aqueous durability was investigated using the MCC-1 and PCT-B standard test methods. The measured Cs leach rates of 3.8 × 10−3 and 2.1 × 10−3 g m−2 day−1 obtained via the MCC-1 and PCT-B methods, respectively, demonstrate good promise of a safe long-term immobilization material comparable to, if not better than, hollanditethe material in the multiphase titanate ceramics (Synroc) targeted for cesium sequestration.