Investigation of Water Adsorption on Metal Oxide Surfaces under Conditions Representative of PuO2 Storage Containers

We have developed a QCM (Quartz Crystal Microbalance) based method for direct gravimetric determination of water adsorption on PuO2 surrogate surfaces, especially CeO2, under conditions representative of those in a typical PuO2 storage can. In this application, the method of transduction of the QCM relies upon the linear relationship between the resonant frequency of piezoelectrically active quartz crystals and the mass adsorbed on the crystal surface. The effect of high temperature on the resonant frequency of coated QCM crystals has been compensated for by modeling the temperature dependence of the frequency response of the surrogate coated-QCM crystal in the absence of water.