Source for Uranium Metal?

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Carl Willis
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Re: Source for Uranium Metal?

Post by Carl Willis »

Here's what the Man says:

10 CFR 40.13 (b) Any person is exempt from the regulations in this part and from the requirements for a license set forth in section 62 of the act to the extent that such person receives, possesses, uses, or transfers unrefined and unprocessed ore containing source material; provided, that, except as authorized in a specific license, such person SHALL NOT REFINE OR PROCESS SUCH ORE.

10 CFR 40.4 Unrefined and unprocessed ore means ore in its natural form prior to any processing, such as grinding, roasting or beneficiating, or refining.

10 CFR 40.22 (a) A general license is hereby issued authorizing commercial and industrial firms, research, educational and medical institutions and Federal, State and local government agencies to use and transfer not more than fifteen (15) pounds of source material at any one time for research, development, educational, commercial or operational purposes. A person authorized to use or transfer source material, pursuant to this general license, may not receive more than a total of 150 pounds of source material in any one calendar year.



Brian's right about the conventional understanding of these laws in our community. However, a strict-constructionist reading may allow for one to possess a quantity of uranium ore having uranium content less than or equal to the 15-lb bag limit, and refine or process it under the restrictions of the General License of 10 CFR 40.22 (a)...provided one's own state, municipality, and landlord don't get bent out of shape over it either. If one claims to be a General Licensee, you are also conveniently opted-out of requirements to maintain a health-physics program BUT you may still have to maintain records and are still beholden to the NRC to not cause contamination or excessive doses to people and that sort of thing. I think this interpretation allows for non-specifically licensed folks to do such things as analytical chemistry, ore assays, and limited refining and processing (but not enrichment). Unless incorporated or otherwise registered as a business, an individual must be prepared to make the case through semantics that he himself is a "research institution."

I'm not about to go ahead and do these things and flaunt it in public though. An amateur scientist should not trust in his skills as an amateur lawyer, unless he's down with a little vacation at Guantanamo.

-Carl
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Re: Source for Uranium Metal?

Post by Todd Massure »

I understand that using depleted uranium slugs was approved for use on domestic military shooting ranges. I don't know if it would be possible to get on to one of those ranges, but I imagine someone with a decent detector could gather quite a few specimens, and possibly even combine them into a larger sample.
I feel kind of weird even talking about this stuff in the post 9/11 world we live in. Ever get that creepy feeling like someone is watching you? I think I just got the internet version.

Todd
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Richard Hull
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Re: Source for Uranium Metal?

Post by Richard Hull »

To Wilfried...........Thorium in thorium welding rods is NOT thorium metal.... it is 98-99% tungsten metal. You may not possess Thorium metal, the element. Licensed thorium bearing materials (lens, mantles, welding rods, etc.), are fine. The content of these item is limited to a very tiny amount mixed in with a large mass of something else.

Q is wise to obtain old books. The information is one of a kind and one day will be well buried among these old ancient tomes forever. The good experimenter will always seek out knowledge.

Carl gives all the legal data and sage advise regarding not becoming your own lawyer.

You can obtain up to 150 lbs of ore a year and make a rock garden with the stuff or pile it up on your lawn. But don't try and process it in any manner. Just 'cause the feds are out of the picture doesn't mean your state, county or city authorities like you or what you are doing. The closer you get to home the more rabid, knee jerk and arbitrary the rules become. Ultimately the rules are what the authorities, who ever they are and in what ever circumstance, say they are.

Depleted uranium metal is legal to own and hold in any number of forms PROVIDED it is in the form of a licensed, manufacturered good and is clearly marked by that manufacturer with "Uranium" stamped into the metal. Bill Kolb's book and the federal regs state this.

Richard Hull
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Re: Source for Uranium Metal?

Post by Wilfried Heil »

Aha. By the same semantics, my Tritium watch isn´t considered radioactive. If it were, it would be banned. It just depends on from which side you look at it. You may be allowed to pray while you´re smoking, but not to smoke while you pray.
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Richard Hull
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Re: Source for Uranium Metal?

Post by Richard Hull »

By definition though, your watch contains absolutely pure, isotopic, elemental, Tritium.

Welding rods contain traces of thorium. Per unit mass, more elemental thorium is contained in lamp mantles or monazite sand in stream beds. No pure thorium metal is for sale, by law.

Pure thorium metal is very abundant, it is easy to make and very, very inexpensive. It is mildly radioactive. (very low specific activity) You can't have any pure stuff by law. No product containing pure thorium is allowed to be manufactured.

Pure tritium is difficult to make (needs a nuclear reactor to make in saleable quantities), difficult to separate, biologically dangerous per unit mass and highly radioactive, (very high specific activity). Tritium is extremely expensive, yet it is easily available in pure form in many open market products.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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Re: Source for Uranium Metal?

Post by Q »

so, is there a reason why thorium metal has been added to the non-obtanium list? or is it yet another example of regulation without reason?

Q
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Richard Hull
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Re: Source for Uranium Metal?

Post by Richard Hull »

I am sure it is regs, without reason, coupled with the obvious question......... What product could you imagine being produced better, cheaper, more useful or longer lasting using pure Thorium metal over any other non-radioactive metal?

I can't think of a thing.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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Re: Source for Uranium Metal?

Post by Wilfried Heil »

I just checked www.goodfellow.com which does offer Thorium and Uranium for research use in small foils and in wire form, though at exorbitant prices. The cost alone would prevent the accumulation of strategic quantities, with no further regulation required.

It appears that just about anything can be had in pure and solid form, for a knowledgeable experimenter, with a suitable lab, and a plausible need for the material.

Some natural alpha emitters such as Thorium and Uranium are regulated, to a different extent depending on the quantity and use. Others like Lanthanum and Platinum are freely available.

If I were to repeat the sonofusion experiments, I´d improvise on the alpha emitter or use one of those which are easily available.
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Richard Hull
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Re: Source for Uranium Metal?

Post by Richard Hull »

All of the suppliers here no longer carry radioactive chemicals or elements. They are deferring such requests to CERAC who still sells both U and Th at about $40.00/gram. Cerac demands that you have an NRC laboratory use certificate before they will sell to you even at the outrageous prices.

Again, the current price for uranium in the open market is $38.00/ lb (~454 grams). This is for the oxide with 1lb of contained elemental U in it. I was unable to locate any quote on spot Thorium prices on the open market as it is not traded publicly as Uranium is.

It is a case where the stuff is very cheap, but unobtainable within the public sector.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
3l
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Re: Source for Uranium Metal?

Post by 3l »

Hi Richard:

Glad to see the juices still flowing.
The post is word for word what the material hazard program spat out when I was applying for my Phd Work.

Happy Fusoring!
Larry Leins
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Re: Source for Uranium Metal?

Post by HighVoltageFox »

Well.. I have found a very detailed discription of how to extract uranium, from a uranium supplier/manufacturer.
I have done this and will post the page as soon as I refind it, I also emailed them and they said that it was relitivly safe except the methanol solvent used. The only problem is you need a lot of ground up ore to extract very much uranium.
Andrew
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Re: Source for Uranium Metal?

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Re: Source for Uranium Metal?

Post by Carl Willis »

Uranium metal itself is never an intermediate in the industrial refining of ores. The easiest way to make it on a small scale is by reducing its tetrafluoride with calcium shavings in a crucible under argon or other inert gas. It's darn-near impossible to make a nice solid hunk of metal through this process, however--it comes out spongy or granular, in perfect form to catch on fire as soon as it gets out in the air. Last point bears repeating: you are making a pyrophoric metal foam that, chances are, is going to burn with significant repercussions to the breathability of the local air supply!

Some folks have managed to get this reaction to work. Maybe they use magnesium instead of calcium? Maybe they have good temperature control? Anyway, the Ohio Department of Health now owns the fruits of one gentleman's labors: a spongy black blob that could fit in a small Dixie cup. I don't know the whole story of who cooked this up or why, but I have personally seen this item.

Chemically extracting uranium out of its ores, where it is present with many other elements including rare earths, usually is pretty involved--that is, if you aspire to any degree of purity. In the lab, a multi-stage aqueous-organic solvent extraction of the "Purex" type using uranyl nitrate and tributylphosphate is likely to work well. This would entail dissolving uranium ore in strong nitric acid and then separating into an organic phase made up of tributylphosphate in kerosene. Following several back-and-forths between an acid / aqueous phase and organic, the worker who wants to go on and make U metal would precipitate the final uranyl salt solution as U(IV) fluoride by adding HF. The mixture of nitric acid and kerosene during extraction is highly explosive. If anything goes wrong, the consequences would be severe. Even a small boo-boo is likely to explosively disperse your highly corrosive (and rather radioactive) leachate into the far corners of carpets, floorboards, drywall, etc. and the air. You'll never clean it up!

There's nothing casual, safety-wise, about these processes. If only they were as safe as using a methanol solvent!

-Carl
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Re: Source for Uranium Metal?

Post by UG! »

i would urge anyone planning to do anything involving radioactive chemistory to first perform a similer process with potassium permanganate or rhodamine and water. then when they see how any chemicals tend to get EVERYWHERE not just in the preperation stage, but when you take off your gloves and wash your hands, then when you wasy your face beffore bed, then the next morning after its rained and there are pritty spots evrywhere you walked then a month later when you use some totaly unrelated pece of equipment and so on.

i have done and will continue to do many dangerious things. radioactve wet chemistory will not be one of them (at least not outside of a properly equiped establishment.)

Oliver
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Re: Source for Uranium Metal?

Post by 3l »

Hi Richard:

We government types do have some rationallity backed by science.
Where the country screws up is when you get some low level wanker to enforce policy with the ability to read but dumb as a box of rocks.

Happy Fusoring!
Larry Leins
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Re: Source for Uranium Metal?

Post by HighVoltageFox »

If done correctaly the uranium solutions should never be directly exposed to the air and the used chemicals disposed of. It may require extensive setting up but the uranium never needs to be out of the system, and I put the U metal in a vial of mineral oil as to avoid fire and oxidation.
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Re: Source for Uranium Metal?

Post by Mark Rowley »

Andrew,
The oxide MUST be reduced in some way to make it a metal. That means the oxide must be retrieved from the system and transferred to a reducing "bomb" which employs the thermite process. Usually magnesium is used. Research the "Ames Process" for more details. Anyway, the leftover muck from this process is known to be quite messy. The reduction chambers also have a tendency to explode in the process sending hot molten debris along with the oxide in all directions.

I believe I would take up skydiving or tornado chasing before attempting this one !

Mark Rowley
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Re: Source for Uranium Metal?

Post by HighVoltageFox »

ohh.. well hell no I wouldn't ever try to reduce the UO3 in to pure U, that would be suicidal in a small lab. I only take it as far as oxide grains. Its good enough for nuclear reactors so I thought that uranium oxide is the best I could ever achive on such a small scale. It will still work for neutron activation experiments so why spend the money for pure U when UO3/UO8 works fine?
I didn't realize that you were looking so far into the enrichment section of the page, there is no way any one could do the enrichment process with out huge industrial machines. No way should anyone make uranium tetrafloride because after that it is a gas and is totaly unpredictable and highly corrosive.
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Re: Source for Uranium Metal?

Post by Mark Rowley »

The UO2 gets converted to UF4(still a solid) and then to the thermite reduction process. No enrichment yet. Thats way later.

Mark Rowley
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Re: Source for Uranium Metal?

Post by JohnCuthbert »

Would it be dull to point out that if you got hold of 15Lbs of uranium as the ore and refined the uranium metal from it (Illegal, unsafe and dangerous as this may be) you would (in Bq terms) have rather more radioactive stuff left behind in the waste. I may have the physics or maths wrong here (and, if so would someoone please let me know) but, IIRC there's about a dozen daughter products and, in an old rock, they will all be in eqm with the U. That gives about a dozen times the activity of the uranium. The figure I have for natural U is 25.4KBq/g ie 11.5 MBq/ Lb or 173 MBq for 15 Lbs.
The daughters would add up to about 2 G Bq
Does anyone really want responsibillity for safe disposal of that?
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Re: Source for Uranium Metal?

Post by Wilfried Heil »

> U0238 fuel pellets are available, $50 USD for 5 gram split, $100 USD for a full 10g pellet.
Really? Where? Under what requirements are these available? I suppose these would be enriched pellets (3-4% U235), unless they were made for the Canadian CANDU reactors.
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Re: Source for Uranium Metal?

Post by Carl Willis »

Bob Lazar (www.unitednuclear.com) used to sell out-of-spec oxide fuel pellets that were purportedly for use in safe low-power critical experiment ("SLOWPOKE") cores designed (like the CANDU) by AECL. They were natural enrichment pellets.

To the best of my knowledge they aren't available anymore. Who knows why he stopped selling. Maybe he ran out? Maybe the NRC put the kibosh on the operation for distribution of source material without a license (my personal best guess). Whoever sells source or byproduct material must have a license to distribute.

-Carl
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Here are some places...

Post by drbuzzo »

Okay. Here are a few places where I know uranium can be had, but I doubt any of them are exactly what you are looking for.

1. The Lab Depot www.labdepotinc.com sells uranyl-acetate at a resonable price.

2. Eberline Services www.eberlineservices.com sells a "depleted uranium slab". I do not know how large it is exactly, but it's a decent size. It's a bit pricy though, if I remember.

3. There are (were) some products made out of uranium for consumer or industrial use, I've seen an X-ray shield and a few faulty DU slugs for sale. You can check eBay or surplus dealers. But you have to keep your eye open. They sometimes pop up for sale...but VERY RARELY. I've seen them...but only a few times.

4. I've heard tales of large quantities of uranium oxide being found at art schools/glass blowing shops. It's not used very much for such applications, but you can always check local glass/ceramic studios. They may have some or know someone who does.

5. If all else fales, you can get it at united nuclear, but they sell it in small quantities generally. You can also buy bulk ore from them, but extracting or purifying the uranium is illegal. So...I'm not going to encourage that.
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