PROCESS DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY REPORT. PART I. LABORATORY WORK
Aqueous entrainment in the extract from the first refinery pamper- decanter was found to range from 0.7 to 2.4 volume per cent. About an order of magnitude better decontamination for sodium and similar impurities is obtained by centrifuging the organic extract. The amount of water sorbed by green salt under equilibrium conditions is a linear function of the uranyl fluoride content. Uranium tetrafluoride could not be dried in air above 400 deg C without serious decomposition. Experiments with isotliermal'' laboratory-scale bombs indicate that preignition charge temperatures above about uranium. An upper limit of about 400 deg C on this heating was necessary to minimize premature ignition. The thermoconductivity of a laboratory bomb charge was increased by replacing pant of the normal granulated mangnesium with magnesium strips or larger chips. The lowest ignition temperature of heated, stirred magnesium-green salt mixtures was found to be 393 deg C. This indicates that preheated bomb charges could probably be handled safely at temperatures below about 300 deg C. A high-voltage spark discharge ignited a cold mixture of UF/sub 4/ in magnesium. The replacement of normal bomb lids and MFL charge caps with either porous graphite or ffrebrick produced uranium with lower hydrogen than normal bombs fired under similar conditions. Molten uranium poured through atmospheres of hydrogen water vapor, and hydrogen fluoride picked up approximately the same amount of hydrogen from all three gases under comparable conditions. The thermal diffusivity of most MFL materials at 650 deg C was found to be approximately 2.0 x 10/sup -3/ cm/ sup 2/sec. An initially high diffusivity (3 x 10/sup -3/ cm/sup 2//sec) was found in measurements on regular MFL, but this higher diffusivity decreased to a limiting value upon heating. No signtficant variation in thermal diffusivity was found from lot to lot of regular MFL. The rate of dissolation of uranium in nitric acid has been shown to depend on nitrous acid concentration consistent with previous postulates of the dissolation mechanism. The occurrence of an unexpectedly vigorous reaction between uranium metal and nitric acid in the plant metal dissolver has been tentatively traced to a conditioning of the metal in a treated water'' containing small amounts of sodium dichromate, sodium triphosphate, and sulfuric acid. The conditioning process apparently produces sensitized patches of the massive pieces of uranium which react with nitric acid with greater than normal activity. The x-ray spectrographic determination of uranium through use of strontium as the internal standard has been successfully applied to the analysis of aqueoas and organic solutions. The precision at the 95% confidence limit is plus or minus 1.3% relative for aqueous solutions at a uranium concentration of 1.0 g/l and plus or minus 1.9% relative for organic solutions at a concentration of 2.0 g/l. (auth)
- Research Organization:
- Mallinckrodt Chemical Works, St. Louis (Missouri)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-2 W-14-108-ENG-8
- NSA Number:
- NSA-13-020761
- OSTI ID:
- 4214055
- Report Number(s):
- MCW-1428
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: Decl. July 29, 1959. Orig. Receipt Date: 31-DEC-59
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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SUMMARY TECHNICAL REPORT ON FEED MATERIALS FOR THE PERIOD APRIL 1, 1959 TO JUNE 30, 1959
PROCESS DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY REPORT
Related Subjects
ADSORPTION- FLUORIDES- GREEN SALT- STABILITY- URANIUM TETRAFLUORIDE- URANYL COMPOUNDS- VARIATIONS- WATER
AIR- DECOMPOSITION- HEATING- TEMPERATURE- URANIUM TETRAFLUORIDE
CENTRIFUGATION- DECANTATION- DECONTAMINATION- IMPURITIES- ORGANIC COMPOUNDS- PUMPS- REFINING- SEPARATION PROCESSES- SODIUM- - SOLVENT EXTRACTION- SUSPENSIONS- WATER
CHEMICAL REACTIONS- CHROMIUM OXIDES- NITRIC ACID- SODIUM COMPOUNDS- SODIUM PHOSPHATES- SOLUTIONS- SULFURIC ACID- TRACE AMOUNTS- URANIUM- WATER
ELECTRIC DISCHARGES- MAGNESIUM- MIXING- SPARKS- TEMPERATURE- URANIUM TETRAFLUORIDE
GASES- HYDROFLUORIC ACID- HYDROGEN- LIQUID META