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URANIUM
A silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table with
atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. The uranium nucleus binds between
141 and 146 neutrons, establishing six isotopes, the most common of which are U-238 (146
neutrons) and U-235 (143 neutrons). All isotopes are unstable and uranium is weakly
radioactive. Uranium has the second highest atomic weight of the naturally occurring elements,
lighter only than plutonium-244. Its density is about 70% higher than that of lead, but not as
dense as gold or tungsten. It occurs naturally in low concentrations in soil, rock and water, and
is commercially extracted from uranium-bearing minerals such as uraninite.U-235 is fissile,
fissile is a material that can sustain chain reaction.
ORIGIN OF URANIUM
Cosmo chemists have been concerned not only with patterns and secular trends of abundance
of the elements in galaxies but also with the origins of abundance anomalies in particular stars
and with theories on the synthesis of different nuclei to account for these observations.
According to the theories developed, the Earth's uranium was produced in one or more
supernovae (An explosive brightening of a star in which the energy radiated by it increases by
a factor of ten billion, A supernova explosion occurs when a star has burned up all its available
nuclear fuel and the core collapses catastrophically)
Sudden collapse in the centre of a massive star triggers the explosive ejection of much of the
star into space, together with a flood of neutrons. Remnants of hundreds of supernovae have
been found, and world witnessed one in the Magellanic Clouds in 1987.
we can calculate the abundances of U-235 and U-238 at the time the Earth was formed.
Knowing further that the production ratio of U-235 to U-238 in a supernova is about 1.65, we
can calculate that if all of the uranium now in the solar system were made in a single
supernova, this event must have occurred some 6.5 billion years ago.
The present-day abundance of uranium in the 'depleted' mantle exposed on the ocean floor is
about 0.004 ppm. The continental crust, on the other hand, is relatively enriched in uranium at
some 1.4 ppm.
• Since 2.5 billion years ago ore • Cosmologists believed that multiple
deposits of uranium have been supernovae from over 6 billion to
formed primarily on earth where about 200 million years ago were
reduction of uranium-bearing fluids responsible of today’s uranium on
was achieved, for example by earth.
bacteria or through contact with
graphitic shales • Theory that much of the uranium in
the primordial planet sunk to the
• The half-life of uranium-238 is about core and has formed a core there,
4.47 billion years and that of some 8 km across, which has been
uranium-235 is 704 million years, fissioning ever since,called as Geo
making them useful in dating the age reactor theory
of the Earth
HISTORY OF URANIUM
Uranium was found in 1789 by the German chemist Martin Heinrich in his laboratory in
Berlin. While he was working in his experimental laboratory in Berlin in 1789, Klaproth was
able to precipitate a yellow compound (likely sodium diuranate) by dissolving pitchblende in
nitric acid and neutralizing the solution with sodium hydroxide.
On 2 December 1942, as part of the Manhattan Project, another team led by Enrico Fermi
was able to initiate the first artificial self-sustained nuclear chain reaction, Chicago Pile-1.
Working in a lab below the stands of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago, the team created
the conditions needed for such a reaction by piling together 400 tons (360 tonnes) of graphite,
58 tons of uranium oxide, and six tons of uranium metal.
• Enrico was awarded the Nobel Prize • Klaproth mistakenly assumed the
in Physics in 1938 for his work on yellow substance was the oxide of
induced radioactivity. a yet-undiscovered element and
heated it with charcoal to obtain a
• First time world nuclear fusin was black powder.
used by Lise Meitner and her
nephew, physicist Otto Robert • The fission products were at first
Frisch,as they published the physical mistaken for new elements of
explanation in February 1939 and atomic numbers 93 and 94.
named the process 'nuclear fission'
URANIUM DEPSOITS
Uranium ore deposits are economically recoverable concentrations of uranium within the
Earth's crust. Uranium is one of the more common elements in the Earth’s crust, some 40 times
more common than silver and 500 times more common than gold. It can be found almost
everywhere in rock, soil, rivers, and oceans. The challenge is to find those areas where the
concentrations are adequate to form an economically viable deposit.
Globally, the distribution of uranium ore deposits is widespread on all continents, with the
largest deposits found in Australia, Kazakhstan, and Canada. To date, high-grade deposits are
only found in the Athabasca Basin region of Canada.
Uranium deposits world-wide can be grouped into 14 major categories of deposit types based
on the geological setting of the deposits. The IAEA classification of uranium ore deposits
contains following types
1. Unconformity-related deposits
2. Sandstone deposits
3. Quartz-pebble conglomerate deposits
4. Breccia complex deposits
5. Vein deposits
6. Intrusive deposits (Alaskites)
7. Phosphorite deposits
8. Collapse breccia pipe deposits
9. Volcanic deposits
10. Surficial deposits
11. Metasomatite deposits
12. Metamorphic deposits
13. Lignite
14. Black shale deposits
The USA has large resources in sandstone deposits in the Western Cordillera region, and most
of its uranium production has been from these deposits, recently by in situ leach (ISL) mining.
5. VEIN DEPOSITS
Vein deposits of uranium are those in which uranium minerals fill cavities such as cracks,
veins, fissures, pore spaces, breccias and stockworks. The dimensions of the openings have a
wide range, from the massive veins of pitchblende. Examples are Schinkolobwe deposit
(Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Port Radium deposit (Canada) to the narrow
pitchblende-filled cracks, faults and fissures in some of the ore bodies in Europe, Canada and
Australia.
Uranium deposits of this type occur in acid to intermediate volcanic rocks and are related to
faults and shear zones within the volcanics. Uranium occurs in veins or disseminated and is
commonly associated with molybdenum and fluorine. These deposits make up only a small
proportion of the world's uranium resources. Significant resources of this type occur in China,
Kazakhstan, Russian Federation and Mexico.
7. SURFICIAL DEPOSITS
Surficial uranium deposits are broadly defined as young (Tertiary to Recent) near-surface
uranium concentrations in sediments or soils. These deposits usually have secondary
cementing minerals including calcite, gypsum, dolomite, ferric oxide, and halite. Uranium
deposits in calcrete are the largest of the surficial deposits. Uranium mineralisation is in fine-
grained surficial sand and clay, cemented by calcium and magnesium carbonates.
8. METASOMATIC DEPOSITS
These occur in circular, vertical collapse structures filled with coarse fragments and a fine
matrix of the penetrated sediments. The collapse pipes are 30-200 metres in diameter and up to
1000 metres deep. Uranium mineralization is mostly within permeable sandstone breccias
within the pipe. The principal uranium mineral is pitchblende. The best-known examples of
this type are deposits in the Arizona Strip in Arizona, USA. Several of these have been mined.
Uranium mineralization occurs in lignite and in clay and sandstone immediately adjacent to the
lignite, in the Serres Basin, Greece, in North and South Dakota, USA and at Mulga Rock,
Western Australia. Uranium has been adsorbed on to carbonaceous matter and consequently no
discrete uranium minerals have formed.
Pakistan’s former U production was essentially concentrated in the Dera Ghazi Khan
District, estimates a cumulative production of 970 t U from 1971, First reports on the
discovery of uranium mineralization date back to the year 1959. Uranium was found in Siwalik
sandstone near Rakhi Munh in the Sulaiman Range. Subsequent exploration led to the
discovery of about a dozen small U deposits in the Dera Ghazi Khan District in the early
1970s. Taunsa, discovered in 2000/2001 in this district, was the latest success.
This group, 4 600–5 500 m thick, was almost continuously deposited from Middle Miocene to
Lower Pleistocene. The Siwalik System or its equivalents in time, respectively, extend
continuously along the Himalayan foothills from Assam in the east to southern Kashmir, and
across the Indus Valley in Pakistan through the Potwar Plateau and Balillu Plains where they
turn southwesterly into the Bannu Basin and then south into the Sulaiman Range. From this
point, they continue as a more marine facies to the Arabian Sea
Siwalik sediments have been spread differently in different regions i.e Siwalik System along
the outer Himalayas, Manchhar System in Sind, Mekran Series in Baluchistan, Dihing Series in
Assam, and Irrawady System in Burma.
The Dera Ghazi Khan District lies in the Sulaiman Range, a prominent morphological element
in the Sulaiman physiographic province in central Pakistan. Numerous radioactive anomalies,
some with visible U minerals, are spread over an outcrop length of more than 160 km along the
foothills of this range. They include about a dozen small blanket sandstone-type U deposits
confi ned to a single horizon near the base of the Middle Siwalik Member in a N-S strip to the
west of the town of Dera Ghazi Khan. Reported deposits include Baghal Chur (or Baghal
chor), Rakuchur, Rakhi Munh, Nangar Nai, Kaha Nalo, Rajanpur; and, located to the
north of the district, Taunsa
Most resources of the early discovered deposits are exhausted. Some early mining of these
deposits was by conventional open pit and underground methods to depths of 150–200 m and
later by ISL techniques and produced an estimated total of some 800 t U. At a cutoff grade of
0.03% U, the ore had grades of 0.1% U as maximum.
Map shows the generalized map of Dera Ghazi khan, with location of Uranium deposits and
occurrences
BAGHAL CHUR
The blanket sandstone-type Baghal Chur deposit lies about 40 km NNW of Dera Ghazi Khan.
Original resources are not published but are assumed to have been on the order of a few
hundreds tonnes U at grades of 0.05% U. Th e deposit was mined from 1971 to 1999 by
conventional methods and is depleted.
Geological Setting
Baghal Chur is situated in the asymmetrical Baghal Chur syncline; its eastern (Zinda Pir) flank
dips 30–50° W while the major portion of the western limb, that hosts all U lodes, shows
gentle and uniform 5–10° easterly dips which, however, increase sharply near the western
anticline. Host rocks are fluvial lacustrine sediments of the Dhok Pathan Formation, Middle
Siwalik Division in which U mineralization is confined to an NE-SW-striking and 5–10° SE
dipping arenite horizon, about 60–75 m thick, termed Baghal Chur Sand. Shale beds occur
below (Bogo Shale) and locally above (Vidor Shale) the sands
The Baghal Chur Sand was deposited primarily as sheets by southerly flowing rivers. It is a
light grey, poorly to well sorted, commonly medium- to fine grained, soft , and friable
subarkose or subgreywacke. Major constituents are quartz, feldspars (10– 25% plagioclase,
microcline, orthoclase), muscovite, and biotite. Lithic rock fragments of magmatic and
metamorphic provenance are common and include chips of occasionally pyritiferous slate and
carbonaceous schists. Some rock fragments may represent diagenetically altered volcanic tuff .
Mineralization
Non-oxidized mineralization: Pitchblende and coffinite are the principal U minerals in the
non-oxidized zone. In addition, uranium is adsorbed by goethite, hematite, martite, biotite, clay
minerals, and plant remains. An appreciable uranium content is also bound in zeolite
(clinoptilolite, heulandite) that occurs as discrete diagenetic crystals in pore cavities.
Oxidized mineralization: Tyuyamunite is the principal U mineral but some carnotite occurs
occasionally. These minerals, in the form of a greenish-yellow amorphous powder, coat grains,
pebbles, and clay pellets, impregnate the interstices between clasts, and locally also associate
with crossbeds of heavy minerals. In the latter case, bands of yellow U minerals about 1 cm
thick follow above or below, or on both sides 5–10 mm thick black, primarily magnetite, heavy
mineral bands and cross beds.
The deposit consists of a group of overlapping ore bodies distributed from surface to depths of
150–200 m. Ore bodies are of strata peneconcordant, elongated to amoeba shape.
The Bannu Basin is located in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan. It contains the
small Qabul Khel, Eagle Hill, and Shanawah sandstone U deposits in the Surghar Range, an
eastern marginal hill range of the basin. U showings hosted by Middle Siwalik molasse also
occur intermittently over a strike length of 30 km between Kundal and Baggi Qammar in the
Khisor Range, a continuation of the Surghar Range, south of the Kurram River.
QABUL KHEL
Qabul Khel (Kubul Khel), named aft er a small nearby village, is located in the southern
Surghar Range.. Grades are about 0.05% U. A number of small ore bodies were explored in the
early 1980s. An experimental underground mining operation was carried out initially but ISL
mining was finally adopted and a semi-commercial scale ISL operation began in mid-1995 on
one ore body. Conventional and ISL mining, respectively, are hampered by the shape of the ore
body, high dip of strata, structural complications, poorly cemented rocks, poor solution
confinement, influx of a high quantity of water, absence of bottom shale at places, high
calcium content in water, and a water table cover of only 3 m.
Geological Setting
The Qabul Khel deposit is located in the plunging, southern part of the Surghar anticline at the
eastern margin of the structural Bannu Basin. This basin consists of folded molasse of the
Siwalik Group. Ore bodies are hosted by the Dhok Pathan Formation that forms the upper unit
of the Middle Siwalik Division. The Dhok Pathan Formation is a cyclic alternating sand-shale
sequence that is variably inclined, between 20 and 45° SW, in the Qabul Khel area.
At the deposit, the sandstone beds are 40–60 m and the intercalated shales 10–15 m thick. The
sandstones are grey, soft and friable, and the shales dull brown and grey. Th e shales are silty
and often contain variable amounts of volcanic material in the form of bentonite and bedded
ash with glass shards. Brittle tectonism resulted in numerous strata discordant and some
intraformational faults, fractures, and joints in the Qabul Khel area that are filled with sand and
are partly calcified but only above the water table
Mineralization
Coffinite and pitchblende are the principal U minerals in the unoxidized environment below
the water table; they occur as pore fillings whereas pitchblende also occurs as micro fine
globules. Uranophane is typical for the oxidized zone. The ore minerals are contained in an
assemblage of predominant amphibole, calcite, quartz, mica, and clay minerals. The ore is
poorly cemented, largely unconsolidated, and fragile
The ore body is of irregular tape-like configuration; it has a NW-SE length of some 200 m, a
thickness commonly from 2 to 15 m averaging 6.5 m, persists over a depth interval from 68 to
118 m below the surface, and averages 0.053% U. The ore follows, in NW-SE direction, the
trace of the water table at the contact of the Qabul Khel Sandstone with underlying\ shale.
Most of the ore is concentrated along the interface of the sandstone with the underlying shale,
but at places the ore forms another limb penetrating strata discordant into the sandstone for as
much as 120 m, parallel to the present day water table.
Kallar Kahar, Salt Range, central-north Pakistan: Uranium occurs in sandstone of the
Middle-Late Miocene Kamlial Formation near Kallar Kahar in the Salt Range, some 120
km SSW of Islamabad. The formation consists of purple-grey and brick red sandstones
interbedded with purple shales. Partly calcified and non-calcified sandstones that contain
abundant organic matter and more or less devitrified volcanic material host the mineralization.
Maraghzar Area, north Pakistan: A vein system with U concentration cutting across the
Swat granitic gneiss complex occurs in the high mountains at Maraghzar area in the Swat
region, but depths and strike continuity remain to be established
• Exploration.
• Mining.
• Milling.
• Conversion.
• Enrichment.
• Fuel Fabrication.
• Fuel Storage
• Reprocessing.
• Vitrification
• Waste Disposal.
Here only brief introduction of these topics will be given, in coming units detail of some of
these topics will be given in this assignment.
Nuclear Fuel Cycle
EXPLORATION
MINING
Uranium is usually mined by either surface (open cut) or underground mining techniques,
depending on the depth at which the ore body is found. In general, Open pit mines require large
holes on the surface, larger than the size of the ore deposit, since the walls of the pit must be
sloped to prevent collapse. As a result, the quantity of material that must be removed in order
to access the ore may be large. Underground mines have relatively small surface disturbance
and the quantity of material that must be removed to access the ore is considerably less than in
the case of an open pit mine. Special precautions, consisting primarily of increased ventilation,
are required in underground mines to protect against airborne radiation exposure.
MILLING
Milling, which is generally carried out close to a uranium mine, extracts the uranium from the
ore. Most mining facilities include a mill, although where mines are close together, one mill
may process the ore from several mines. Milling produces a uranium oxide concentrate which
is shipped from the mill. It is sometimes referred to as 'yellowcake'..
CONVERSION
Milled uranium oxide, U3O8, must be converted to uranium hexafluoride, UF6, which is the
form required by most commercial uranium enrichment facilities currently in use. A solid at
room temperature, uranium hexafluoride can be changed to a gaseous form at moderately
higher temperature of 57 °C (134 °F). The uranium hexafluoride conversion product contains
only natural, not enriched, uranium.
ENRICHMENT
The vast majority of all nuclear power reactors in operation and under construction require
'enriched' uranium fuel in which the proportion of the U-235 isotope has been raised
from the natural level of 0.7% to about 3.5% or slightly more. The enrichment process
removes about 85% of the U-238 by separating gaseous uranium hexafluoride into two
streams: One stream is enriched to the required level and then passes to the next stage
of the fuel cycle. The other stream is depleted in U-235 and is called 'tails'. It is mostly
U-238.
FUEL FABRICATION
For use as nuclear fuel, enriched uranium hexafluoride is converted into uranium dioxide
(UO2) powder that is then processed into pellet form. The pellets are then fired in a high
temperature sintering furnace to create hard, ceramic pellets of enriched uranium. The
cylindrical pellets then undergo a grinding process to achieve a uniform pellet size. The
pellets are stacked, according to each nuclear reactor core's design specifications, into
tubes of corrosion-resistant metal alloy. The tubes are sealed to contain the fuel pellets:
these tubes are called fuel rods.
FUEL STORAGE
Used fuel assemblies taken from the reactor core are highly radioactive and give off a lot of
heat. They are therefore stored in special ponds which are usually located at the reactor site, to
allow both their heat and radioactivity to decrease. The water in the ponds serves the dual
purpose of acting as a barrier against radiation and dispersing the heat from the spent fuel.
Spent fuel can be stored safely in these ponds for long periods. It can also be dry stored in
engineered facilities, cooled by air. However, both kinds of storage are intended only as an
interim step before the spent fuel is either reprocessed or sent to final disposal. The longer it is
stored, the easier it is to handle, due to decay of radioactivity.
REPROCESSING
Spent fuel still contains approximately 96% of its original uranium, of which the fissionable U-
235 content has been reduced to less than 1%.
Reprocessing separates uranium and plutonium from waste products (and from the fuel
assembly cladding) by chopping up the fuel rods and dissolving them in acid to separate the
various materials. Recovered uranium can be returned to the conversion plant for conversion to
uranium hexafluoride and subsequent re-enrichment. The reactor-grade plutonium can be
blended with enriched uranium to produce a mixed oxide (MOX) fuel, in a fuel fabrication
plant
VITRIFICATION
After reprocessing the liquid high-level waste can be calcined (heated strongly) to produce a
dry powder which is incorporated into borosilicate (Pyrex) glass to immobilise the waste. The
glass is then poured into stainless steel canisters, each holding 400 kg of glass. A year's waste
from a 1000 Mwe reactor is contained in 5 tonnes of such glass, or about 12 canisters 1.3
metres high and 0.4 metres in diameter. These can be readily transported and stored, with
appropriate shielding.
This is as far as the nuclear fuel cycle goes at present. The final disposal of vitrified high-level
wastes, or the final disposal of spent fuel which has not been reprocessed spent fuel, has not yet
taken place.
A current concern in the nuclear power field is the safe disposal and isolation of either spent
fuel from reactors or, if the reprocessing option is used, wastes from reprocessing plants. These
materials must be isolated from the biosphere until the radioactivity contained in them has
diminished to a safe level. At the present time, there are no disposal facilities (as opposed to
storage facilities) in operation in which used fuel, not destined for reprocessing, and the waste
from reprocessing, can be placed.
As with other types of hard rock mining there are several methods of extraction depending on
the depth at which the ore body occurs. The main methods of mining are box cut mining, open
ptt mining and in situ leaching (ISL)
1. Open pit
2. Underground Mining
3. ISL(In Situ Leaching)
4. Heap Leaching
If the uranium is too far below the surface for open pit mining, an underground mine might be
used with tunnels and shafts dug to access and remove uranium ore. There is less waste
material removed from underground mines than open pit mines, however this type of
mining exposes underground workers to the highest levels of radon gas.
Once the ore body has been identified a shaft is sunk in the vicinity of the ore veins, and
crosscuts are driven horizontally to the veins at various levels, usually every 100 to 150
metres. Similar tunnels, known as drifts, are driven along the ore veins from the
crosscut. To extract the ore, the next step is to drive tunnels, known as raises when
driven upwards and winzes when driven downwards through the deposit from level to
level. Raises are subsequently used to develop the stopes where the ore is mined from
the veins.
In-situ leaching (ISL), also known as solution mining, or in-situ recovery (ISR) in North
America, involves leaving the ore where it is in the ground, and recovering the minerals from it
by dissolving them and pumping the pregnant solution to the surface where the minerals can be
recovered. Consequently there is little surface disturbance and no tailings or waste rock
generated. However, the orebody needs to be permeable to the liquids used, and located so that
they do not contaminate ground water away from the orebody.
Uranium ISL uses the native groundwater in the orebody which is fortified with a complexing
agent and in most cases an oxidant. It is then pumped through the underground orebody to
recover the minerals in it by leaching. Once the pregnant solution is returned to the surface, the
uranium is recovered in much the same way as in any other uranium plant (mill).
Heap Leaching
Heap leaching is a process by which chemicals (usually sulfuric acid) are used to extract the
economic element form the ore. Heap leaching is generally only economically feasible
only for oxide ore deposits. Oxidation of sulphide deposits occur during the geological
process called weatherization. Therefore oxide ore deposits are typically found close to
the surface. If there are no other economic elements within the ore a mine might choose
to extract the Uranium using a leaching agent, usually a low molar sulphuric acid
ISL(In situ eaching) Heap leaching
Mined uranium ores normally are processed by grinding the ore materials to a uniform particle
size and then treating the ore to extract the uranium by chemical leaching. The milling process
commonly yields dry powder-form material consisting of natural uranium, "yellowcake,"
which is sold on the uranium market as U3O8.There are numerous steps involved in the
uranium milling process
• Crushing
• Grinding
• Leaching
• Slime Separation
• Thickening
• Ion Exchange Method
• Solvent Extraction
• Precipitation
• Filtration
• Drying and Roasting
• Shipment for Conversion
URANIUM ENRICHMENT
Mined uranium ore comprises 0.7% of the U235 isotope, the rest being U238. U235 is much
more unstable and undergoes fission more readily, and is a much better fuel for a reactor.
Enrichment of uranium is undertaken to increase the amount of U235 to 3-5%, which is needed
in most current reactor designs. For comparison, uranium used for nuclear weapons, for which
enrichment technology was developed, would have to be enriched in plants specially designed
to produce at least 90% U235
Because of the presence of small quantities of U-235, natural uranium can sustain a chain
reaction under certain conditions, and therefore can be used as a fuel in certain kinds of
nuclear reactors.For the most common reactor type in use around the world today, which uses
ordinary water as a coolant and moderator, the percentage of U-235 in the fuel must be higher
than the 0.7 percent found in natural uranium. The set of industrial processes that are used to
increase the percentage of U-235 in a given quantity of uranium go under the general method
of “uranium enrichment” with the term “enrichment” referring to the increase in the percentage
of the fissile isotope U-235.
Only four technologies have been used on a large scale for enriching uranium. Three of these,
gaseous diffusion, gas centrifuges, and jet nozzle / aerodynamic separation, are based on
converting uranium into uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas. The fourth technique,
electromagnetic separation, is based on using ionized uranium gas produced from solid
uranium tetrachloride (UCl4).
There are currently two main commercial methods to enrich uranium: gaseous
diffusion and gas centrifugation. Both use uranium hexafluoride (UF6) as the
feed, which is converted to uranium dioxide after enriching
The enrichment process removes about 85% of the U238 by separating gaseous uranium
hexafluoride into two streams, one stream is enriched to the required level, while the other
stream is depleted in U235 and is known as 'tails'. The tails comprises roughly 99.75% U238
and is of no further use for energy.
1. Gaseous diffusion
In the gaseous diffusion process, U235 and U238 atoms are separated by feeding UF6 in
gaseous form through a series of porous walls or membranes. Because the lighter U235
particles travel faster than U238 particles, more of them penetrate each membrane. This is
repeated through hundreds of membranes until the correct enrichment level is reached. The
high amount of energy required to force the UF6 through the membranes makes the gaseous
diffusion process expensive.
2. Gas Centrifuges
In this process, the gaseous UF6 is placed in a centrifuge. The rapid spinning flings the heavier
U238 atoms to the outside of the centrifuge, leaving the UF6 in the centre enriched with a
higher proportion of U235 atoms. The enrichment level achieved by a single centrifuge is
insufficient to obtain the desired concentration of U235. Therefore a number of centrifuges are
connected together in an arrangement known as a cascade. The U235 concentration gradually
increases to 3 – 5% as it passes through the cascade. This method has a significant cost
advantage over gaseous diffusion, as it requires about 2% of the energy needed to perform
gaseous diffusion..
EMIS uses the same principles as a mass spectrometer (albeit on a much larger scale). Ions of
U238 and U235 are separated because they describe arcs of different radii when they move
through a magnetic field. A major problem with this method is that less than half of the UCl4
feed is converted to the desired U ions, and less than half of the desired U ions are collected.
Recovering unused material from the interior surfaces of the tanks is laborious, time-
consuming process that reduces the effective output of an EMIS facility. EMIS is both energy
intensive and labour intensive, and not economically competitive with other enrichment
technologies.
Although not in common use, techniques using gas flow and pressure gradients have been
developed (Roux and Grant,1975), including the separation nozzle process and the vortex tube
separation process. These aerodynamic separation processes depend upon diffusion driven by
pressure gradients, and can be thought-of as a non-rotating centrifuge. For both of these
processes, the high proportion of carrier gas required in relation to UF6 process gas results in
high specific-energy consumption and substantial requirements for removal of waste heat.
NUCLEAR REACTORS
A nuclear reactor is a device to initiate, control, and sustain a nuclear chain reaction. The
most common use of nuclear reactors is for the generation of electrical power. This is usually
accomplished by methods that involve using heat from the nuclear reaction to power steam
turbines. The energy released from continuous fission of the atoms of the fuel is harnessed as
heat in either a gas or water, and is used to produce steam. The steam is used to drive the
turbines which produce electricity (as in most fossil fuel plants).
There are various types of nuclear reactors now a days producing electricity, they are classified
on the various schemes such as on bases of coolant,moderator and classification on bases of
generation or technology.
We will here discuss the nuclear reactors used commercially, follwing are the nuclear reactors
used commercially.
BWR design has many similarities to the PWR, except that there is only a single circuit in
which the water is at lower pressure (about 75 times atmospheric pressure) so that it boils in
the core at about 285°C. The reactor is designed to operate with 12-15% of the water in the top
part of the core as steam, and hence with less moderating effect and thus efficiency there.
The steam passes through drier plates (steam separators) above the core and then directly to the
turbines, which are thus part of the reactor circuit. Since the water around the core of a reactor
is always contaminated with traces of radionuclides, it means that the turbine must be shielded
and radiological protection provided during maintenance.
It uses natural uranium (0.7% U-235) oxide as fuel, hence needs a more efficient moderator, in
this case heavy water (D20). The moderator is in a large tank called a calandria, penetrated by
several hundred horizontal pressure tubes which form channels for the fuel, cooled by a flow of
heavy water under high pressure in the primary cooling circuit, reaching 290°C. As in the
PWR, the primary coolant generates steam in a secondary circuit to drive the turbines. The
pressure tube design means that the reactor can be refuelled progressively without shutting
down, by isolating individual pressure tubes from the cooling circuit.
Under appropriate operating conditions, the neutrons given off by fission reactions can "breed"
more fuel from otherwise non-fissionable isotopes. The most common breeding reaction is that
of plutonium-239 from non-fissionable uranium-238. The term "fast breeder" refers to the
types of configurations which can actually produce more fissionable fuel than they use, such as
the LMFBR. This scenario is possible because the non-fissionable uranium-238 is 140 times
more abundant than the fissionable U-235 and can be efficiently converted into Pu-239 by the
neutrons from a fission chain reaction.
Boiling Water Reactors (BWR) Pressurized water Reactor(PWR)
• Light water reactors typically use 3 to 5 • One ton of natural uranium can
percent enriched uranium produce more than 40 million
kilowatt-hours of electricity. This
• A PWR has fuel assemblies of 200-300 is equivalent to burning 16,000
rods each, arranged vertically in the tons of coal or 80,000 barrels of
core, and a large reactor would have oil.
about 150-250 fuel assemblies with 80-
100 tonnes of uranium. • Worldwide, there are 441 nuclear
power plants that supply about 16
• A CANDU fuel assembly consists of a percent of the world's electricity.
bundle of 37 half metre long fuel rods
(ceramic fuel pellets in zircaloy tubes) • The PHWR reactor design has
plus a support structure, with 12 been developed since the 1950s in
bundles lying end to end in a fuel Canada as the CANDU.
channel.
• The design of PWRs originated as
• A BWR fuel assembly comprises 90- a submarine power plant.
100 fuel rods, and there are up to 750
assemblies in a reactor core, holding up • Nuclear power plants are also used
to 140 tonnes of uranium. for the power in some ships
HYBIRD FUSION
Hybrid nuclear fusion is the use of a combination of nuclear fusion and fission processes to
generate power. This is in contrast to pure fusion which does not have any fissionable
component. The goal is to use fuel pellets of deuterium and tritium surrounded by a fissionable
(or fertile) blanket to produce energy sufficiently greater than the input (laser) energy for
electrical power generation. The principle involved is to induce inertial confinement fusion
(ICF) in the fuel pellet which acts as a highly concentrated point source of neutrons which in
turn converts and fissions the outer fissionable blanket.
The fusion process alone currently does not achieve sufficient gain (power output over power
input) to be viable as a power source. By using the excess neutrons from the fusion reaction to
in turn cause a high-yield fission reaction (close to 100%) in the surrounding subcritical
fissionable blanket, the net yield from the hybrid fusion-fission process can provide a targeted
gain of 100 to 300 times the input energy.
The major application of uranium in the military sector is in high-density penetrators. This
ammunition consists of depleted uranium (DU) alloyed with 1–2% other elements. At high
impact speed, the density, hardness, and flammability of the projectile enable destruction of
heavily armored targets. DU provides a substantial performance advantage, well above other
competing materials. Depleted Uranium (DU) is a low cost material that is readily available.
DU's high density and its high atomic number Z = 92.
During the later stages of World War II, the entire Cold War, and to a lesser extent afterwards,
uranium has been used as the fissile explosive material to produce nuclear weapons. Two
major types of fission bombs were built: a relatively simple device that uses uranium-235 and a
more complicated mechanism that uses uranium-238-derived plutonium-239.