Development of Deterministic Reaction Triggering in UF4 Magnesiothermic Reduction

Abstract

Uranium metal ingot is routinely produced by magnesiothermic reduction (MTR) at plant scale. In the conventional process, heating of the reaction vessel is continued till self-initiation or self-firing of the reaction occurs. A novel deterministic reaction triggering (DRT) method has been developed for the MTR process on a 5 kg uranium ingot scale, which makes the firing definite and decreases specific energy consumption and batch duration by about 33.8% and 30–50%, respectively, without affecting the process recovery. The pre-heat time and pre-heat temperature required for initiating the external trigger were estimated using COMSOL simulations and thermodynamic evaluation of the final product temperature, respectively. The process recovery with DRT (~93%) was comparable to that of the conventional self-firing process. A well-consolidated uranium ingot with a recovery of about 93% was obtained with 100 ppm Cr and 97 ppm Ni in the scaled up (50 kg) batch by employing deterministic triggering. This DRT method is applicable and useful for similar reaction processes for augmenting process capacity and energy utilization.