Electrolytic way of processing depleted (bladed) uranium hexafluoride

Abstract

In the nuclear industry at implementation of uranium-plutonium nuclear cycle there is a constant formation and accumulation in warehouses of huge quantities of depleted (bladed) uranium hexafluoride (UF/sub 6/). The problem is how to use the bladed UF/sub 6/. In the suggested method, bladed UF/sub 6/ is evaporated from steel capacitances and submitted in a gas phase to an electrolytic furnace under a layer of an electrolyte; UF/sub 6/ dissolves well in an offered electrolyte. The electrolyte is a melt of a low-melting eutectic of fluoride salts of alkaline and earth metals. The recovered uranium powder can be used as commodity outputs or stored as ingots.