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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.
Augustus Merwin, Dev Chidambaram
Nuclear Technology | Volume 195 | Number 2 | August 2016 | Pages 204-212
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NT15-126
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
INCONEL alloy 625® (I625) was exposed to molten LiCl-Li2O-Li to evaluate the material reliability for applications involving the electrolytic reduction of uranium oxide. Samples of I625 were exposed to solutions of LiCl with 1 and 2 wt% Li2O, containing either 0, 0.5, or 1 wt% metallic lithium for 20 h at 650°C. Additional experiments exposed samples to LiCl saturated with Li2O to investigate the mechanism of interaction between materials and the melt. Postexposure sample surface morphology and chemistry were studied using scanning electron microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Additionally, inductively coupled plasma–optical emission spectroscopy was used to analyze the melt to determine the alloy constituents that leached out of the coupon during the exposure. The inclusion of 0.5 wt% metallic lithium in the molten solution was found to increase the stability of chromium-rich surface films and suppress the dissolution rate of alloying elements, compared to melts of LiCl-Li2O containing no metallic Li. Alternatively, samples exposed to solutions containing 1 wt% metallic lithium did not form surface films and demonstrated evidence of chromium depletion. The degradation of materials exposed to solutions containing 1 wt% metallic lithium was observed to be different from samples exposed to solutions saturated with lithium oxide, demonstrating a chemical effect other than, or in addition to, salt basicity.