Application in The Nuclear Fuel Cycle
UF6 is used in both of the main uranium enrichment methods, gaseous diffusion and the gas centrifuge method, because it has a triple point at 64.05 °C (147 °F, 337 K) and slightly higher than normal atmospheric pressure. Fluorine has only a single naturally-occurring stable isotope, so isotopologues of UF6 differ in their molecular weight based solely on the uranium isotope present.
All the other uranium fluorides are involatile solids which are coordination polymers.
Gaseous diffusion requires about 60 times as much energy as the gas centrifuge process; even so, this is just 4% of the energy that can be produced by the resulting enriched uranium.
In addition to its use in enrichment, uranium hexafluoride has been used in an advanced reprocessing method (fluoride volatility) which was developed in the Czech Republic. In this process, used oxide nuclear fuel is treated with fluorine gas to form a mixture of fluorides. This is then distilled to separate the different classes of material.
Read more about this topic: Uranium Hexafluoride
Famous quotes containing the words application, nuclear, fuel and/or cycle:
“There are very few things impossible in themselves; and we do not want means to conquer difficulties so much as application and resolution in the use of means.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“Could it not be that just at the moment masculinity has brought us to the brink of nuclear destruction or ecological suicide, women are beginning to rise in response to the Mother’s call to save her planet and create instead the next stage of evolution? Can our revolution mean anything else than the reversion of social and economic control to Her representatives among Womankind, and the resumption of Her worship on the face of the Earth? Do we dare demand less?”
—Jane Alpert (b. 1947)
“The particular source of frustration of women observing their own self-study and measuring their worth as women by the distance they kept from men necessitated that a distance be kept, and so what vindicated them also poured fuel on the furnace of their rage. One delight presumed another dissatisfaction, but their hatefulness confessed to their own lack of power to please. They hated men because they needed husbands, and they loathed the men they chased away for going.”
—Alexander Theroux (b. 1940)
“Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Roumania.”
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967)