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US 2018/0030576 A1Published application
Uranium hexafluoride off-gas treatment system and method
AssigneeTerraPower, LLC
InventorInaky J. Urza
Life of this patent
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Abstract
This disclosure describes systems and methods for removing uranium hexafluoride (UF6) and/or other uranium fluoride (uranium fluorides identified herein generally as UFx) gases from a hydrogen fluoride (HF) gas stream.
Claims16
A method for treating hydrogen fluoride gas containing trace amounts of uranium fluoride gas comprising:
- contacting the hydrogen fluoride gas containing trace amounts of uranium fluoride gas with a caustic solution containing particulate CaF2;
- and
- separating the particulate CaF2 from the caustic solution after the contacting operation.
A method for collecting uranium from a HF gas containing trace amounts of UF6 comprising:
- mixing a raw gas stream of the HF gas containing a first concentration of UF6 with a KOH treatment solution, the KOH treatment solution being an aqueous solution of KOH having a pH of greater than 11 and including an amount of particulate CaF2, thereby generating a uranium-bearing combined stream containing KOH and KF in solution and particulate CaF2 with sorbed U compounds.
A system for removing uranium from a hydrogen fluoride gas containing at least some uranium hexafluoride, the system comprising:
- a gas-liquid contactor that
- a) receives the hydrogen fluoride gas containing uranium hexafluoride at a gas inlet,
- b) receives a KOH treatment solution containing particulate CaF2 at a solution inlet, and
- c) discharges a uranium-bearing KOH solution including KOH, KF, and particulate CaF2 with sorbed U compounds from a solution outlet;
- a first separator that receives the uranium-bearing KOH solution from the solution outlet, the first separator adapted to separate particulate CaF2 from the uranium-bearing KOH solution to obtain a filtered KOH treatment solution containing KF and KOH and a solid residue of particulate CaF2 and sorbed U compounds;
- and
- a KOH treatment solution recycler that receives either uranium-bearing KOH solution or filtered KOH treatment solution and adds Ca(OH)2 to the received solution to convert the KF into KOH and particulate CaF2, thereby generating the KOH treatment solution containing particulate CaF2.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.