Plasma Chemical Processing of Depleted Uranium Hexafluoride

A reprocessing of uranium hexafluoride waste, which was accumulated in the nuclear industry for many years, is a very vital question now. There are a lot of gas tanks filled with UF6 that have been exposed for a long time and are posing a serious ecological danger. A plasma chemical technique is proposed here to transform the uranium hexafluoride depleted with isotope 235U (less than 0.1%) into the safe storage form - powdered uranium oxides. The second product is HF (70-80% aqueous solution) which may be easily reprocessed by means of the rectification column up to pure anhydrous hydrogen fluoride. The designed technological scheme and the basic technical characteristics of the plasma chemical converter are presented. The proposed technique is efficient, easy controlled and free of any harmful by-products.