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Uranium Enrichment
Recently, Iran resumed uranium enrichment at its underground Fordow plant located near Tehran.Consider the following given statements about the uranium enrichment process:
- Uranium needs to be in a solid form for enrichment due to the varying chemical and physical properties the different isotopes (U-235 and U-238).
- Enriched uranium is produced by feeding uranium hexafluoride gas into centrifuges to separate out the most suitable isotope for nuclear fission, called U-235.
Choose the correct answer from the codes given below:
A |
Only 1
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|
B |
Only 2
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|
C |
Both 1nad 2
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D |
Neither 1 nor 2
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Your Ans is
Right ans is B
Your Answer Is Correct
Your Answer Is Wrong
Explanation :
- Natural uranium is composed of various isotopes, or different types of uranium. It contains approximately 99.3% of the isotope uranium-238, and has only very small concentrations, about 7%, of the fissile isotope uranium-235. An isotope is considered fissile if it can be split by a slow moving neutron.
- Uranium-235 is the most significant fissile isotope of uranium for reactor fuel and nuclear weapons.
- Uranium needs to be in a gaseous form for enrichment due to the varying chemical and physical properties the different isotopes (U-235 and U-238) have.
- Commercially, the U235 isotope is enriched to 3 to 5% (from the natural state of 0.7%) and is then further processed to create nuclear fuel.
- At the conversion plant, uranium oxide is converted to the chemical form of uranium hexafluoride (UF6) to be usable in an enrichment facility.
Stages of Enrichment
- Uranium enriched to concentrations above 0.7% but less than 20% uranium-235 is defined as low enriched uranium (LEU). Most nuclear reactors use LEU that is about 3-5% uranium-235.
- Uranium enriched to more than 20% uranium-235 is defined as highly enriched uranium (HEU). All HEU is weapons-usable, but the lower the enrichment level the greater the amount of material required to achieve a critical mass - the amount of material required to build a bomb.
- States with nuclear weapons typically use so-called weapons-grade HEU, which is typically defined as 90% HEU or above, to minimize weapons’ size.
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