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
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