Laser enrichment reduces atomic costs
15 Jan 2000
The United States Enrichment Corporation is looking for a site to put its uranium enrichment facility using the AVLIS process.
Uranium ore mainly consists of inert U238. Less than one per cent is the vital, energy producing U235. The enrichment process boosts concentration of U235, to nearly 5 per cent, the level required for most commercial reactor fuel.
The atomic vapour laser isotope separation (AVLIS) process begins with uranium alloy being fed into a separator in which a high energy electron beam vapourises the uranium rods. AVLIS uses a system of high powered lasers, tuned to a specific wavelength, to selectively ionise only the U235 isotope while leaving U238 neutral. Since the U235 has a slightly different absorption spectrum than the U238, it absorbs the laser light while the U238 does not. The absorbed energy from the light excites the U235 atom, knocking off an electron and giving it a positive charge. The ionised U235 atoms are then attracted to negatively charged collecting plates.
The recovered enriched uranium alloy is sent to a conversion facility to be changed into uranium oxide pellets which are to be used as a fuel at nuclear power plants.
USEC expects that an AVLIS facility will use only 5 to 10 per cent of the electric power used by gaseous diffusion plants, require less capital investment than a centrifuge plant, and will use 20 to 30 per cent less uranium to produce comparable amounts of enriched product. UCEC expects to begin operating an AVLIS plant in 2005.
