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Fernald, Ohio
The Fernald Feed Materials Production Center (commonly referred to simply as Fernald) is a Superfund site located within Crosby Township in Hamilton County, Ohio, and Ross Township in Butler County, Ohio, in the United States. The plant was located near the rural town of Fernald, about northwest of Cincinnati, Ohio, and occupied Fernald was a facility which refined uranium for the U.S. nuclear weapons production complex from 1951 to 1989. During that time, the plant produced 170,000 metric tons of metal products and 35,000 metric tons of compounds, such as uranium trioxide and uranium tetrafluoride. Annual production rates ranged from a high in 1960 of 10,000 metric tons to a low in 1975 of 1,230 metric tons. Refining uranium metal was a process that required a series of chemical and metallurgical conversions that occurred in nine specialized plants at the site. Fernald came under criticism in 1984 when it was learned that the plant was releasing millions of pounds of uraniu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Superfund
Superfund is a United States federal environmental remediation program established by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). The program is administered by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and is designed to pay for investigating and cleaning up sites contaminated with hazardous substances. Sites managed under this program are referred to as Superfund sites. Of the tens of thousands of sites selected for possible action under the Superfund program, 1178 (as of 2024) remain on the National Priorities List (NPL)The EPA and state agencies use the ''Hazard Ranking System (HRS)'' to calculate a site score (ranging from 0 to 100) based on the actual or potential release of hazardous substances from a site. A score of 28.5 places a site on the National Priorities List, eligible for cleanup under the Superfund program. that makes them eligible for cleanup under the Superfund prog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaseous Diffusion
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). 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middlesex Sampling Plant
The Middlesex Sampling Plant on Mountain Avenue in Middlesex, New Jersey, is a site which was initially used to stockpile pitchblende uranium ore. From 1943 to 1955, under the direction of the Manhattan Project and its successor agency, the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), it was used to crush, dry, screen, weigh, assay, store, package, and ship uranium ore, along with thorium and beryllium ores, for the development of the atomic bomb. Contamination It was later discovered that radioactive waste had been disposed of a half mile away at the Middlesex Municipal Landfill. The site was used from 1955 to 1967 for the sampling and storage of thorium residues, and was decontaminated, certified, and released for unrestricted use in 1967. During the decontamination process, radioactive materials were carried away by wind and rain to the yards of nearby residents. The facility was used by the United States Marine Corps as a reserve training center from 1969 until 1979, when t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Union Carbide
Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) is an American chemical company headquartered in Seadrift, Texas. It has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Dow Chemical Company since 2001. Union Carbide produces chemicals and polymers that undergo one or more further conversions by customers before reaching consumers. Some are high-volume commodities and others are specialty products. Markets served include paints and coatings, packaging, wire and cable, household products, personal care, pharmaceuticals, automotive, textiles, agriculture, and oil and gas. The company is a former component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Founded in 1917 as the Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation, from a merger with National Carbon Company, the company's researchers developed an economical way to make ethylene from natural gas liquids, such as ethane and propane, giving birth to the modern petrochemical industry. The company divested consumer products businesses Eveready and Energizer batteries, Glad b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uranium Hexafluoride
Uranium hexafluoride, sometimes called hex, is the inorganic compound with the formula . Uranium hexafluoride is a volatile, white solid that is used in enriching uranium for nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. Preparation Uranium dioxide is converted with hydrofluoric acid (HF) to uranium tetrafluoride: : The resulting is subsequently oxidized with fluorine to give the hexafluoride: : In samples contaminated with uranium trioxide, uranyl fluoride, an oxyfluoride compound is produced in the HF step: : which can be fluorinated to produce the same product, uranium hexafluoride. : The fluorination step in both reactions above are highly exothermic. Properties Physical properties At atmospheric pressure, sublimes at 56.5 °C. The solid-state structure was determined by neutron diffraction at 77 K and 293 K.J. C. Taylor, P. W. Wilson, J. W. Kelly: „The structures of fluorides. I. Deviations from ideal symmetry in the structure of crystalline UF6: a neutron diffract ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cleveland
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania state border. Cleveland is the most populous city on Lake Erie, the second-most populous city in Ohio, and the 53rd-most populous city in the U.S. with a population of 372,624 in 2020. The city anchors the Cleveland metropolitan area, the 33rd-largest in the U.S. at 2.18 million residents, as well as the larger Cleveland– Akron– Canton combined statistical area with 3.63 million residents. Cleveland was founded in 1796 near the mouth of the Cuyahoga River as part of the Connecticut Western Reserve in modern-day Northeast Ohio by General Moses Cleaveland, after whom the city was named. The city's location on the river and the lake shore allowed it to grow into a major commercial and industrial metropolis by the late 19th century, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 reactors. A mixture of uranium and plutonium dioxides is used as MOX fuel. It has been used as an orange, yellow, green, and black color in ceramic glazes and glass. Production Uranium dioxide is produced by reducing uranium trioxide with hydrogen. This reaction often creates triuranium octoxide as an intermediate. :UO3 + H2 → UO2 + H2O at 700 °C (973 K) This reaction plays an important part in the creation of nuclear fuel through nuclear reprocessing and uranium enrichment. Chemistry Structure The solid is isostructural with (has the same structure as) fluorite ( calcium fluoride), where each U is surrounded by eight O nearest neighbors in a cubic arrangement. In addition, the dioxides of cerium, thorium, and the tran ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uranium Ore
Uranium ore deposits are economically recoverable concentrations of uranium within Earth's crust. Uranium is one of the most common Chemical element, elements in Earth's crust, being 40 times more common than silver and 500 times more common than gold. It can be found almost everywhere in rock, soil, rivers, and oceans. The challenge for commercial uranium extraction is to find those areas where the concentrations are adequate to form an economically viable deposit. The primary use for uranium obtained from mining is in fuel for nuclear reactors. Globally, the distribution of uranium ore deposits is widespread on all continents, with the largest deposits found in Australia, Kazakhstan, and Canada. To date, high-grade deposits are only found in the Athabasca Basin region of Canada. Uranium deposits are generally classified based on host rocks, structural setting, and mineralogy of the deposit. The most widely used classification scheme was developed by the International Atomic Ene ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mallinckrodt Chemical Works
Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals plc is an American-Irish domiciled manufacturer of specialty pharmaceuticals (namely, adrenocorticotropic hormone), generic drugs and imaging agents. In 2017, it generated 90% of its sales from the U.S. healthcare system. While Mallinckrodt is headquartered in Ireland for tax purposes, its operational headquarters are in the U.S. Mallinckrodt's 2013 tax inversion to Ireland drew controversy when it was shown Acthar was Medicaid's most expensive drug. Mallinckrodt acquires (for repricing), manufactures, and distributes products used in diagnostic procedures and in the treatment of pain and related conditions. This includes the acquisition, manufacture, and distribution of specialty pharmaceuticals, active pharmaceutical ingredients, contrast products, and radiopharmaceuticals. The company employed 5,500 and had net sales of $3.2 billion in 2017, of which $2.9 billion was from the U.S. healthcare system. The company has been implicated as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manhattan Project Feed Materials Program
The Manhattan Project feed materials program located and procured uranium ores, and refined and processed them into feed materials for use in the Manhattan Project's isotope enrichment plants at the Clinton Engineer Works in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and its nuclear reactors at the Hanford Engineer Works in Washington state. The original goal of the feed materials program in 1942 was to acquire approximately of triuranium octoxide () (black oxide). By the time of the dissolution of the Manhattan District on 1 January 1947, it had acquired about , of which came from the Belgian Congo, from the Colorado Plateau, and from Canada. An additional came from "miscellaneous sources", which included quantities recovered from Europe by the Manhattan Project's Alsos Mission. Ores from the Belgian Congo contained the most uranium per mass of rock by far. Much of the mined ore from the Shinkolobwe mine had a black oxide content as high as 65% to 75%, which was many times higher than any ot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plutonium
Plutonium is a chemical element; it has symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is a silvery-gray actinide metal that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibits six allotropes and four oxidation states. It reacts with carbon, halogens, nitrogen, silicon, and hydrogen. When exposed to moist air, it forms oxides and hydrides that can expand the sample up to 70% in volume, which in turn flake off as a powder that is pyrophoric. It is radioactive and can accumulate in bones, which makes the handling of plutonium dangerous. Plutonium was first synthesized and isolated in late 1940 and early 1941, by deuteron bombardment of uranium-238 in the cyclotron at the University of California, Berkeley. First, neptunium-238 (half-life 2.1 days) was synthesized, which then beta-decayed to form the new element with atomic number 94 and atomic weight 238 (half-life 88 years). Since uranium had been named after the planet Uranus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hanford Site
The Hanford Site is a decommissioned nuclear production complex operated by the United States federal government on the Columbia River in Benton County in the U.S. state of Washington. It has also been known as SiteW and the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project, the site was home to the Hanford Engineer Works and B Reactor, the first full-scale plutonium production reactor in the world. Plutonium manufactured at the site was used in the first atomic bomb, which was tested in the Trinity nuclear test, and in the Fat Man bomb used in the bombing of Nagasaki. During the Cold War, the project expanded to include nine nuclear reactors and five large plutonium processing complexes, which produced plutonium for most of the more than 60,000 weapons built for the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Nuclear technology developed rapidly during this period, and Hanford scientists produced major technological achievements. The town of Richland, e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
