Abstract: The spherical UO₂ ceramic particles were prepared by a sol-gel method with U₃O₈ powders as raw material, which combines advantages of external gelation and internal gelation methods. The process includes steps of sol preparation, gel particles forming, aging, ashing, drying, calcining, reducing, sintering, sieving and separating. The crystal form of the ceramic particle is face-centered cubic, and its density reaches 98.18% of the theoretical density value. All of the O/U ratio, diameter, sphericity and odd-shaped particles fraction can reach the design specification. Influences of many factors are also analyzed.

Key words: sol-gel, spherical ceramic particle, UO2, nuclear fuel