URANIUM HEXAFLUORIDE REDUCTION METHOD Russian patent published in 2003 - IPC

FIELD: nuclear fuel technology. SUBSTANCE: invention relates to methods of reducing uranium hexafluoride into lowered lower uranium fluorides and uranium metal and can be employed when processing depleted uranium hexafluoride. Reduction of UF₆ is effected in chemical reactor with the aid of preliminarily atomized hydrogen diluted by a buffer gas under continuous spontaneous burning conditions. Atomic hydrogen is generated by mixing monoatomic fluorine with molecular hydrogen flow, said monoatomic fluorine being injected through nozzle block from combustion chamber. In the latter, molecular hydrogen is continuously burned with excess molecular fluorine ignited in burner block in a manner that extra fluorine molecules thermally dissociate into fluorine atoms. When UF₆ is reduced to uranium metal, ratio of atomic hydrogen to UF₆ molecules in the mixture fed into reactor is 6:1, and when uranium tetrafluoride is aimed, this ratio is 2:1. EFFECT: enabled product composition control and lowered reduction temperature. 3 cl, 2 ex