Obtaining Hydrogen Fluoride During the Interaction of Uranium Hexafluioride with Hydrogen and Oxygen in a Combustion Regime. Experiment

• Published in: Journal of engineering physics and thermophysics Vol. 94; no. 5; pp. 1304 - 1311
• Main Authors: Pashkevich, D. S., Alekseev, Yu. I., Mukhortov, D. A., Kambur, P. S., Petrov, V. B., Bazhenov, D. A., Zimin, A. R., Smolkin, P. A., Kapustin, V. V.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01-09-2021; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Ammonia; Classical Mechanics; Cold flow; Combustion; Complex Systems; Engineering; Engineering Thermodynamics; Flow velocity; Fluid dynamics; Fluid flow; Fluorides; Fluorine; Heat and Mass Transfer; Hydrofluoric acid; Hydrogen; Hydrogen fluoride; Industrial Chemistry/Chemical Engineering; Reynolds number; Thermodynamics; Uranium; Uranium dioxide; Uranium hexafluoride; Uranium oxides; combustion; uranium oxides; hydrogen fluoride; depleted uranium hexafluoride
• ISSN: 1062-0125; 1573-871X
• DOI: 10.1007/s10891-021-02411-9

In the course of experiments on a pilot plant with a vertical cylindrical reactor of the “tunnel burner” type whose inside diameter is equal to 142 mm, it has been established that when UF
6
, H
2
, and O
2
with a nearly 1:3:1 molar ratio respectively and a cold-mixture-flow Reynolds number of the order of 10,000 are fed to the reactor, a stable flame of diffusion combustion is formed. It is initiated by a self-igniting fluorine-ammonia pair at a fluorine flow rate of the order of 0.5% of the UF
6
flow rate. The major uranium-bearing product of the flame process was a mixture of uranium oxides, mainly UO
2
and U
3
O
8
, in which fluorine covalent-bonded to uranium was present in the amount 0.1–3% mainly in the form of UF
4
and UO
2
F
2
. The major fluorine-containing product was hydrofluoric acid with a content of hydrogen fluoride higher than 95%. From the data obtained, a technology can be developed for obtaining anhydrous hydrogen fluoride from depleted uranium hexafluoride.