Gaseous diffusion uses microporous membranes to enrich uranium
Gaseous diffusion is a technology that was used to produce enriched uranium by forcing gaseous uranium hexafluoride (UF6) through microporous membranes. This produces a slight separation (enrichment factor 1.0043) between the molecules containing uranium-235 (235U) and uranium-238 (238U). By use of a large cascade of many stages, high separations can be achieved. It was the first process to be developed that was capable of producing enriched uranium in industrially useful quantities, but is nowadays considered obsolete, having been superseded by the more-efficient gas centrifuge process (enrichment factor 1.05 to 1.2).[1][2]
Gaseous diffusion was devised by Francis Simon and Nicholas Kurti at the Clarendon Laboratory in 1940, tasked by the MAUD Committee with finding a method for separating uranium-235 from uranium-238 in order to produce a bomb for the British Tube Alloys project. The prototype gaseous diffusion equipment itself was manufactured by Metropolitan-Vickers (MetroVick) at Trafford Park, Manchester, at a cost of £150,000 for four units, for the M. S. Factory, Valley. This work was later transferred to the United States when the Tube Alloys project became subsumed by the later Manhattan Project.[3]
Gaseousdiffusion is a technology that was used to produce enriched uranium by forcing gaseous uranium hexafluoride (UF6) through microporous membranes...
Portsmouth GaseousDiffusion Plant is a facility located in Scioto Township, Pike County, Ohio, just south of Piketon, Ohio, that previously produced...
88°48′37″W / 37.11389°N 88.81028°W / 37.11389; -88.81028 The Paducah GaseousDiffusion Plant (PGDP) is a facility located in McCracken County, Kentucky,...
Beams's team looked into gaseousdiffusion at Columbia University, and Philip Abelson directed research into thermal diffusion at the Carnegie Institution...
electro-deposited nickel mesh diffusion barriers were pioneered by Edward Adler and Edward Norris. See gaseousdiffusion. Due to the high energy consumption...
area. At the time, the proposed nuclear reactor, gas centrifuge and gaseousdiffusion technologies were still in the research stage, and the design of the...
facility for the production of enriched uranium through gaseousdiffusion. In gaseousdiffusion, isotopes of Uranium-235 could be separated from Uranium-238...
Electronic diffusion, resulting in an electric current called the diffusion current Facilitated diffusion, present in some organisms Gaseousdiffusion, used...
located at Columbia University that developed isotope separation using gaseousdiffusion. The method was successfully developed, becoming the sole method used...
separation usually makes a colorless gas invisible to the human observer. The gaseous state of matter occurs between the liquid and plasma states, the latter...
nuclear reactors and a plutonium processing plant at Windscale, and a gaseousdiffusion uranium enrichment facility at Capenhurst, near Chester. The two Windscale...
Britain's own gaseousdiffusion plant, a heavy water plant and an atomic reactor in Britain, despite its immense cost. A gaseousdiffusion plant to produce...
of the size of an actual separation plant." In it, Simon proposed gaseousdiffusion as the best method for uranium isotope separation.: 339, 343 On 28...
uranium-238 (238U). The gas centrifuge was developed to replace the gaseousdiffusion method of uranium-235 extraction. High degrees of separation of these...
feed from the new S-50 thermal diffusion plant. The next month it received enhanced (5%) feed from the K-25 gaseousdiffusion plant. By April 1945 K-25 was...
the Paducah GaseousDiffusion Plant consumed about 3,000 megawatts of electricity at peak operation. Power for the Paducah gaseousdiffusion plant came...
Materials (SAM) Laboratories at Columbia University, developing the gaseousdiffusion process for uranium enrichment. After the war, Libby accepted a professorship...
temperature gradient. Francis Simon's group at Oxford investigated the gaseousdiffusion, which works on the principle that at differing pressures uranium...
replaced as the environmental remediation contractor for the Portsmouth GaseousDiffusion Plant site in Piketon in 2005, after DOE awarded a new contract to...
dioxide, which is used in photosynthesis, passes through stomata by gaseousdiffusion. Water vapour diffuses through the stomata into the atmosphere as...
post-war period in favor of the more complicated, but more efficient, gaseousdiffusion method. Although most of the calutrons of the Manhattan Project were...
Gas diffusion electrodes (GDE) are electrodes with a conjunction of a solid, liquid and gaseous interface, and an electrical conducting catalyst supporting...
hexafluoride for uranium enrichment. Since UF 6 is as corrosive as fluorine, gaseousdiffusion plants required special materials: nickel for membranes, fluoropolymers...
Global Information