ConverDyn is a general partnership between American multinational firms

General Atomics General Atomics is an American energy and defense corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, specializing in research and technology development. This includes physics research in support of nuclear fission and nuclear fusion energy. The ...

and

Honeywell Honeywell International Inc. is an American publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building technologies, performance ma ...

that provides

uranium hexafluoride Uranium hexafluoride (), (sometimes called "hex") is an inorganic compound with the formula UF6. Uranium hexafluoride is a volatile white solid that reacts with water, releasing corrosive hydrofluoric acid. The compound reacts mildly with alumin ...

(UF₆) conversion and related services to utilities operating nuclear power plants in North America, Europe, and Asia. The company is the sole marketing agent of UF₆ produced at the

Honeywell Uranium Hexafluoride Processing Facility The Honeywell Uranium Hexafluoride Processing Facility, a uranium conversion facility, is located northwest of Metropolis, Illinois, United States. The plant, Honeywell Honeywell#Specialty materials, Specialty Chemicals in Metropolis, Illinois, h ...

Metropolis, Illinois Metropolis is a city located along the Ohio River in Massac County, Illinois, United States. It has a population of 6,537 according to the 2010 United States Census. Metropolis is the county seat of Massac County and is part of the Paducah, K ...

History

From 1970 to 1992, there were two operating uranium hexafluoride conversion facilities in the United States. These included

Allied Signal AlliedSignal was an American aerospace, automotive and engineering company created through the 1985 merger of Allied Corp. and Signal Companies. It subsequently purchased Honeywell for $14.8 billion in 1999, and thereafter adopted the Honeywell n ...

's Metropolis Works Facility and General Atomics' Sequoyah Fuels Facility in

Gore, Oklahoma Gore is a town in western Sequoyah County, Oklahoma, United States. It is part of the Fort Smith, Arkansas-Oklahoma Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 977 at the 2010 census, an increase of 15 percent over the figure of 850 recorded ...

. Facing low conversion prices and the implementation of the

Megatons to Megawatts Program The Megatons to Megawatts Program, also called the United States-Russia Highly Enriched Uranium Purchase Agreement, was an agreement between Russia and the United States. The official name of the program is the "Agreement between the Government of t ...

, both companies recognized the forthcoming struggles surrounding excess market supply of conversion services. In 1992, Allied Signal and General Atomics agreed to close the Gore, Oklahoma facility and take joint and equal ownership of profits from Allied Signal's plant in Metropolis, Illinois. ConverDyn was formed as a general partnership between the two companies as the sole marketing organization of uranium hexafluoride produced at the Metropolis plant. As a result, any and all uranium hexafluoride produced at Metropolis Works is marketed and sold by ConverDyn. In 1999, Honeywell and Allied Signal merged resulting in the partnership structure that exists currently.

Honeywell Metropolis Works

Built in 1958, the Honeywell Metropolis Works Facility is the only uranium hexafluoride conversion facility in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The plant has an annual conversion capacity of approximately 15,000 tU as UF₆ accounting for approximately 20% of worldwide production capacity. The plant feeds U₃O₈

yellowcake Yellowcake (also called urania) is a type of uranium concentrate powder obtained from leach solutions, in an intermediate step in the processing of uranium ores. It is a step in the processing of uranium after it has been mined but before fue ...

received from uranium mines and produces uranium hexafluoride gas for enrichment at one of the primary enrichment sites around the world. After being enriched, product is fabricated into nuclear fuel that ends up generating electricity at a nuclear power plant.

Conversion Process

Honeywell Metropolis Works deploys a unique technology and process by which it converts

to uranium hexafluoride gas. The other Western conversion facilities,

Areva Areva S.A. is a French multinational group specializing in nuclear power headquartered in Courbevoie, France. Before its 2016 corporate restructuring, Areva was majority-owned by the French state through the French Alternative Energies and Atom ...

and

Cameco Cameco Corporation (formerly Canadian Mining and Energy Corporation) is the world's largest publicly traded uranium company, based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. In 2015, it was the world's second largest uranium producer, accounting for 18 ...

, each utilize a process that requires two different facilities, one to convert

to either

uranium tetrafluoride Uranium tetrafluoride is the inorganic compound with the formula UF4. It is a green solid with an insignificant vapor pressure and low solubility in water. Uranium in its tetravalent (uranous) state is important in various technological processe ...

or uranium trioxide and another to convert to

. Honeywell developed a process known as the dry fluoride volatility conversion process that allows for complete yellowcake to UF₆ at a single facility and also yielding a greater level of UF₆ purity at 99.99% or higher. The dry fluoride volatility conversion process at Metropolis works goes through five basic steps: feed preparation, reduction, hydrofluorination, fluorination, and distillation. * Feed Preparation MDP8867z

The aim of this initial step it to ensure that uranium concentrates have the optimum particle size and density necessary to move forward in the process of conversion. * Reduction During this stage, uranium ore concentrates are converted to

uranium dioxide Uranium dioxide or uranium(IV) oxide (), also known as urania or uranous oxide, is an oxide of uranium, and is a black, radioactive, crystalline powder that naturally occurs in the mineral uraninite. It is used in nuclear fuel rods in nuclear rea ...

and impurities are removed from the system into a waste gas stream. The sized yellowcake is reacted with hydrogen in a fluidizing medium to form uranium dioxide :2+ → 3 + 2 * Hydrofluorination The UO₂ resulting from the previous reduction stage is then converted into

intermediate (Green Salt) and additional impurities are removed from the system. :+4 → + 2 * Fluorination MTW Picture

The Metropolis Works Plant operates the largest gaseous fluorine capacity in the world. Fluorine is produced in this process by the electrolysis of HF in a Potassium Bifluoride substrate. The fluorine is pulled to the fluorination process under vacuum so as to increase the safety of this step. The result of this step is crude uranium hexafluoride gas. :+ → * Distillation Finally, uranium hexafluoride from the previous step is purified in a two-stage distillation system. The crude UF₆ is vaporized and transferred through a boiling system into

cold trap In vacuum applications, a cold trap is a device that condenses all vapors except the permanent gases into a liquid or solid. The most common objective is to prevent vapors being evacuated from an experiment from entering a vacuum pump where they ...

s. After cooling, the final product is filled into

cylinders A cylinder (from ) has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may also be defined as an infini ...

for transport. This stage is proprietary Honeywell technology which allows output of 99.99% or greater UF₆.

2012 Required Plant Upgrades

After the

Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster The was a nuclear accident in 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan. The proximate cause of the disaster was the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which occurred on the afternoon of 11 March 2011 and ...

in 2011, the United States

Nuclear Regulatory Commission The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with protecting public health and safety related to nuclear energy. Established by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, the NRC began operat ...

conducted inspections at all US nuclear facilities for seismic deficiencies and general resistance to natural disasters. Although initial inspections confirmed that the Metropolis Works Facility was in full compliance with its operating license, the NRC shutdown the plant in May 2012 and required a series of upgrades to improve resilience to natural disasters including earthquakes and tornadoes. Honeywell elected to complete required upgrades and the plant restarted production of uranium hexafluoride in July 2013, after more than a year offline.

Gallery

References

{{Honeywell Chemical industry Chemical plants Chemical companies of the United States Honeywell Nuclear fuel companies Nuclear facilities Nuclear fuel infrastructure in the United States