Chemistry of inorganic compounds – Treating mixture to obtain metal containing compound – Radioactive metal
Patent
1979-02-28
1984-02-07
Lieberman, Allan
Chemistry of inorganic compounds
Treating mixture to obtain metal containing compound
Radioactive metal
209166, 423258, B03D 100, B03D 102, B03D 106, C01G 5600
Patent
active
044303076
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to a process for the separation of the isotopes from a body, particularly from a heavy metal, and to an apparatus for carrying out the process.
At the present time there are two known processes utilized for producing such a separation, based on the difference of mass between the molecules of the same chemical compound of several isotopes of the same body, the centrifugation, and the gaseous diffusion. The process that is utilized the most, the gaseous diffusion, requires complex equipment. Furthermore, when it is utilized for the separation of the isotopes 235 and 238 of uranium, it is carried out with uranium tetrafluoride, an extremely active compound from the chemical view point and thus difficult to handle.
It is an object of the present invention to eliminate these disadvantages. For this purpose the process of the invention comprises the formation of a tension-active compound of this body, the dissolution of this compound in a liquid having a strong surface tension, the injection of a non-miscible body into this solution to form a plurality of separation surfaces, and the recovery of the fraction of the solution which is adjacent to the mentioned separation surfaces.
It is indeed known that the tension-active force which attracts the molecules of a tension-active body dissolved in a liquid toward a separation surface formed in this liquid, is similar to the capillary tension. This force is due to the action of the surrounding molecules, here the molecules of the liquid having a strong surface tension, on the molecule considered, an action carried out by attraction or repulsion forces at a short distance. This action, which is necessarily balanced in the bulk mass of the solution and has therefore a zero resultant, is unbalanced at the vicinity of the separation surfaces, precisely because of the fact that there are, beyond this separation surface, different molecules, and thus different attraction or repulsion forces. This action has therefore, in the vicinity of the separation surface, a resultant which is non zero. For reasons of symmetry it is furthermore normal to this surface.
This action is carried out on the molecules of the liquid as well as on the molecules of the tension-active compound, but it is stronger on the molecules of the tension-active compound than on the molecules of the liquid, and the former tend to take the place of the latter on the separation surfaces. It will be shown furthermore that the capillary energy of the system is equal to the product of the area of the separation surface and the surface tension of the molecules which cover it. This tends to be a minimum energy which explains on the one hand why the non-miscible body, when it is a fluid, presents itself in the form of drops or bubbles of spherical shape so as to minimize the surface, and on the other hand why the molecules of the tension-active compound tend to take the place of the molecules of the liquid having a strong surface tension.
This is all happening as if the molecules of the tension-active compound were attracted by the separation surface. This attraction force is the same for all the molecules of the compound, whichever be the isotope of the body having served to form it, because it is a force which has a chemical origin. This force of attraction is inversely proportional to a power n of the distance to the separation surface. In a first approximation one can estimate that n is equal to 2.
All the molecules of the tension-active compound are thus attracted toward the separation surface by an identical force which is only the function of the distance, but these molecules do not all have the same mass, because those which contain the lightest isotope of the body of which one wants to perform the isotopic separation are in all evidence lighter than the molecules containing the heaviest isotope. It will thus be understood that the molecules containing the lightest isotope have a greater acceleration than the molecules containing the heaviest isotope, having less inertia than th
REFERENCES:
patent: 3058811 (1962-10-01), Shay
patent: 3551329 (1966-07-01), Lange et al.
patent: 3697235 (1972-10-01), Ogle
patent: 3794716 (1974-02-01), Ogle
patent: 4024217 (1977-05-01), Wexler et al.
Chemical Abstracts, 62: 154, 364 b-c, 1965.
"Flotation" by A. M. Gaudin (2nd ed)., McGraw-Hill, 1957 p. 485.
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