Uranium is a chemical element; it has symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium radioactively decays, usually by emitting an alpha particle. The half-life of this decay varies between 159,200 and 4.5 billion years for different isotopes, making them useful for dating the age of the Earth. The most common isotopes in natural uranium are uranium-238 and uranium-235. Uranium has the highest atomic weight of the primordially occurring elements. Its density is about 70% higher than that of lead and slightly lower than that of gold or tungsten. It occurs naturally in low concentrations of a few parts per million in soil, rock and water, and is commercially extracted from uranium-bearing minerals such as uraninite.
Isotope separation is the process of concentrating specific isotopes of a chemical element by removing other isotopes. The use of the nuclides produced is varied. The largest variety is used in research. By tonnage, separating natural uranium into enriched uranium and depleted uranium is the largest application. In the following text, mainly uranium enrichment is considered. This process is crucial in the manufacture of uranium fuel for nuclear power plants and is also required for the creation of uranium-based nuclear weapons. Plutonium-based weapons use plutonium produced in a nuclear reactor, which must be operated in such a way as to produce plutonium already of suitable isotopic mix or grade.
Enriched uranium is a type of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 has been increased through the process of isotope separation. Naturally occurring uranium is composed of three major isotopes: uranium-238, uranium-235, and uranium-234. 235U is the only nuclide existing in nature that is fissile with thermal neutrons.
The Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE) was the main centre for atomic energy research and development in the United Kingdom from 1946 to the 1990s. It was created, owned and funded by the British Government.
Lucas Heights is a suburb in southern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is near to the Royal National Park.
The High Flux Australian Reactor (HIFAR) was Australia's first nuclear research reactor. It was built at the Australian Atomic Energy Commission (AAEC) research establishment at Lucas Heights, Sydney, New South Wales. The reactor was in operation between 1958 and 2007, when it was decommissioned and replaced with the multi-purpose Open-pool Australian lightwater reactor (OPAL), also in Lucas Heights.
Atomic vapor laser isotope separation, or AVLIS, is a method by which specially tuned lasers are used to separate isotopes of uranium using selective ionization of hyperfine transitions. A similar technology, using molecules instead of atoms, is molecular laser isotope separation (MLIS).
MOATA was a 100 kW thermal Argonaut class reactor built at the Australian Atomic Energy Commission Research Establishment at Lucas Heights, Sydney. MOATA went critical at 5:50am on 10 April 1961 and ended operations on 31 May 1995. MOATA was the first reactor to be decommissioned in Australia in 2009.
The Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) is India's premier nuclear research facility, headquartered in Trombay, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It was founded by Homi Jehangir Bhabha as the Atomic Energy Establishment, Trombay (AEET) in January 1954 as a multidisciplinary research program essential for India's nuclear program. It operates under the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), which is directly overseen by the Prime Minister of India.
The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) is Australia's national nuclear organisation and the centre of Australian nuclear expertise. It is a statutory authority under the Australian Government formed in 1987 to replace the Australian Atomic Energy Commission.
Molecular laser isotope separation (MLIS) is a method of isotope separation, where specially tuned lasers are used to separate isotopes of uranium using selective ionization of hyperfine transitions of uranium hexafluoride molecules. It is similar to AVLIS. Its main advantage over AVLIS is low energy consumption and use of uranium hexafluoride instead of vaporized uranium. MLIS was conceived in 1971 at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The National Atomic Energy Commission is the Argentine government agency in charge of nuclear energy research and development.
Separation of isotopes by laser excitation (SILEX) is a process for enriching uranium to fuel nuclear reactors that may also present a growing nuclear weapons proliferation risk. It is strongly suspected that SILEX utilizes laser condensation repression to excite a vibrational mode of the uranium-235 isotope in uranium hexaflouride (UF6), allowing this lighter molecule to move more rapidly to the outer rim of a gaseous jet and resist condensing compared to the heavier, unexcited 238UF6. This differs greatly from previous methods of laser enrichment explored for their commercial prospects: one using atomic uranium (Atomic Vapor Laser Isotope Separation (AVLIS)) and another molecular method that uses lasers to dissociate a fluorine atom from 235UF6 (Molecular Laser Isotope Separation (MLIS)), allowing the enriched product to precipitate out as a solid.
The Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science & Technology (PINSTECH) is a federally funded research and development laboratory in Nilore, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Sir John Philip Baxter was a British-Australian chemical engineer. He was the second director of the University of New South Wales from 1953, continuing as vice-chancellor when the position's title was changed in 1955. Under his administration, the university grew from its technical college roots into the "fastest growing and most rapidly diversifying tertiary institution in Australia". Philip Baxter College is named in his honour.
A neutron research facility is most commonly a big laboratory operating a large-scale neutron source that provides thermal neutrons to a suite of research instruments. The neutron source usually is a research reactor or a spallation source. In some cases, a smaller facility will provide high energy neutrons using existing neutron generator technologies.
Project-706, also known as Project-786 was the codename of a research and development program to develop Pakistan's first nuclear weapons. The program was initiated by Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in 1974 in response to the Indian nuclear tests conducted in May 1974. During the course of this program, Pakistani nuclear scientists and engineers developed the requisite nuclear infrastructure and gained expertise in the extraction, refining, processing and handling of fissile material with the ultimate goal of designing a nuclear device. These objectives were achieved by the early 1980s with the first successful cold test of a Pakistani nuclear device in 1983. The two institutions responsible for the execution of the program were the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and the Kahuta Research Laboratories, led by Munir Ahmed Khan and Abdul Qadeer Khan respectively. In 1976 an organization called Special Development Works (SDW) was created within the Pakistan Army, directly under the Chief of the Army Staff (Pakistan) (COAS). This organization worked closely with PAEC and KRL to secretly prepare the nuclear test sites in Baluchistan and other required civil infrastructure.
The Pakistan Atomic Research Reactor or (PARR) are two nuclear research reactors and two other experimental neutron sources located in the PINSTECH Laboratory, Nilore, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Arthur William Pryor was an Australian physicist known for his contributions to neutron diffraction and infrared laser isotope separation. Pryor authored and co-authored a number of papers in the field of crystallography and he also co-authored, with B. T. M. Willis, the book Thermal Vibrations in Crystallography.
Robert Dautray was a French engineer, scientific director of the French Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA) and High Commissioner for Atomic Energy. He was a member of the French Academy of Sciences, section mechanical and computer sciences, and of the French Academy of Technology.
