Laboratory-scale X-ray absorption spectroscopy approach for actinide research: Experiment at the uranium L3-edge

We report the first proof of principle of an efficient and cost-effective bentchtop alternatives to synchrotron radiation beamlines to perform at laboratory scale Xray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) at the U L3-edge in transmission mode. We find excellent agreement with synchrotron-based studies for concentrated samples, in reasonable acquisition time, for UO2, KUO3 and b-UO3 samples. The approach described here already constitutes an inexpensive answer to the XAS beamline over-subscription in the field of actinide’s research for state of the art experiments.
Moreover, our results opens the door to many future applications in the field of actinide’s research, including f-electron chemistry, environmental chemistry and nuclear energy physico-chemistry such as advanced nuclear fuel and long term
nuclear waste disposal.