9.1 Uranium Refineries

Table 5.27 lists the principal uranium refineries of the Western world and their feed and products. In all these refineries except Allied Chemical’s, the sequence of operations follows some or all of the steps shown in Fig. 5.21, in which uranium ore concentrates are first purified by solvent extraction and then converted to the materials of principal practical importance, uranium dioxide, uranium metal, or uranium hexafluoride. The steps in these refining operations will be described in process sequence in Secs. 9.2 through 9.6.

In Allied Chemical’s uranium refinery the sequence of process operations is reversed, with conversion to UF6 preceding purification, and with UF6 as the sole purified product. The Allied Chemical process will be described briefly in Sec. 9.7.