Influence of radiation damage on the structure and chemical durability of titanites.

Previous studies on chemical durability of radioactive waste forms mainly focused on samples containing no radionuclides. We performed a hydrothermal experiment with several variably self-irradiated natural titanites and the leaching results indicate that radiation damage has some influence over chemical durability through its ability to change the microstructures of materials, including cracks, holes, interconnected amorphous clusters, and nano-sized defects. However, chemical durability is not influenced if the variation in local microstructures induced by radiation damage is insignificant.