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Reduction of uranium triiodide to metal by thermal decomposition

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Abstract

Uranium metal was successfully produced from uranium triiodide through thermal decomposition in a tetra-arc crystal furnace. The uranium triiodide was produced by reacting uranium and iodine at 600 °C for 24 h. After the uranium triiodide was heated in the arc furnace, a product was confirmed to be uranium metal through X-ray diffraction, density, and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy measurements. Historically, uranium triiodide has been reduced after passing through a gaseous intermediate of uranium tetraiodide and reduced on a hot filament. This is the first report of directly reducing uranium triiodide to uranium metal, circumventing the uranium tetraiodide intermediary.

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Acknowledgements

This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344 and was supported by the LLNL-LDRD Program under Project No. 18-SI-001. LLNL release number LLNL-JRNL-768061.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Materials Science Division, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 7000 East Ave., Livermore, CA, 94550, USA

    Y. S. Idell, K. S. Holliday & R. L. Stillwell

  2. Physics Division, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 7000 East Ave., Livermore, CA, 94550, USA

    J. R. Jeffries

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  1. Y. S. Idell
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  2. K. S. Holliday
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  3. R. L. Stillwell
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  4. J. R. Jeffries
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Correspondence to K. S. Holliday.

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Idell, Y.S., Holliday, K.S., Stillwell, R.L. et al. Reduction of uranium triiodide to metal by thermal decomposition. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 320, 793–800 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-019-06541-6

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