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Undeclared uranium hitches a ride on cobalt exports from Congo, study says
Philippe (left) and Manzuk quantified the amount of uranium that has been exported from the DRC in cobalt shipments or left behind in the environment. (Photo: Joel Hallberg/UW–Madison)
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Princeton University have published a study in Nature Communications that calls attention to a blind spot in nuclear nonproliferation: The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has exported thousands of metric tons of uranium, and there is no accounting for where it has gone.
In partnership with Lighthouse Reports and the Financial Times, UW–Madison nuclear engineering professor and nuclear security expert Sébastien Philippe and Ryan Manzuk, a geologist and research fellow in Philippe’s group and at Princeton, conducted the study using countrywide mineralization and geochemical data.
Hee-Chul Yang, Hee-Chul Eun, Yung-Zun Cho, Han-Soo Lee, In-Tae Kim
Nuclear Technology | Volume 171 | Number 3 | September 2010 | Pages 300-305
Technical Paper | Pyro 08 Special / Reprocessing | doi.org/10.13182/NT10-A10865
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A fundamental study on the distillation rate on LiCl-KCl eutectic salt under different vacuums from 66 to 6600 Pa (0.5 to 50 mm Hg) was performed by using both a nonisothermal and an isothermal thermogravimetric (TG) analysis. Based on the nonisothermal TG data, distillation rate equations as a function of the temperature could be derived. Calculated flux by these model flux equations was in agreement with the distillation rate obtained from isothermal TG analysis. A salt distillation operation with a moderated distillation rate of 10-4 to 10-5 molcm-2s-1 is possible at temperatures of <1300 K and vacuums of 660 to 6600 Pa. An [approximately]99% salt distillation efficiency was obtained after 1 h at a temperature above 1150 K under 6600 Pa. An increase in the vaporizing surface area is relatively effective for removing residual salt in the remaining particles, when compared to that for the vaporizing time. More than 99.95% of total distillation efficiency was obtained for a 1-h distillation operation by increasing the inner surface area from 4.52 to 12.56 cm2 (about 3 times increase).