History
Suggested in 1919, the centrifugal process was first successfully performed in 1934. Jesse Beams and coworkers at the University of Virginia developed the process by separating two chlorine isotopes through a vacuum ultracentrifuge. It was one of the initial isotopic separation means pursued during the Manhattan Project, but research was discontinued in 1944 as it was felt that the method would not produce results by the end of the war, and that other means of uranium enrichment (gaseous diffusion and electromagnetic separation) had a better chance of success in the short term. However this method was successfully used in the Soviet nuclear program, making the Soviet Union the most effective supplier of enriched uranium.
In the long term, especially with the development of the Zippe-type centrifuge, the gas centrifuge has become a very economical mode of separation, using considerably less energy than other methods and having numerous other advantages. Enrichment by centrifuge has been used in particular by Abdul Qadeer Khan in Pakistan, and the method was smuggled to at least three different countries by the end of the 20th century.
Read more about this topic: Gas Centrifuge
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