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:
“My business is stanching blood and feeding fainting men; my post the open field between the bullet and the hospital. I sometimes discuss the application of a compress or a wisp of hay under a broken limb, but not the bearing and merits of a political movement. I make gruel—not speeches; I write letters home for wounded soldiers, not political addresses.”
—Clara Barton (1821–1912)
“The emotional security and political stability in this country entitle us to be a nuclear power.”
—Ronald, Sir Mason (b. 1930)
“I had an old axe which nobody claimed, with which by spells in winter days, on the sunny side of the house, I played about the stumps which I had got out of my bean-field. As my driver prophesied when I was plowing, they warmed me twice,—once while I was splitting them, and again when they were on the fire, so that no fuel could give out more heat. As for the axe,... if it was dull, it was at least hung true.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Only mediocrities progress. An artist revolves in a cycle of masterpieces, the first of which is no less perfect than the last.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)