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AssigneeThe United States of America as represented by the United States Department of Energy
InventorsForrest B. Waldrop, Edward Jones
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The present invention is directed to a method for providing uranium metal with a protective coating of copper. Uranium metal is subjected to a conventional cleaning operation wherein oxides and other surface contaminants are removed, followed by etching and pickling operations. The copper coating is provided by first electrodepositing a thin and relatively porous flash layer of copper on the uranium in a copper cyanide bath. The resulting copper-layered article is then heated in an air or inert atmosphere to volatilize and drive off the volatile material underlying the copper flash layer. After the heating step an adherent and essentially non-porous layer of copper is electro-deposited on the flash layer of copper to provide an adherent, multi-layer copper coating which is essentially impervious to corrosion by most gases.
A method for providing an adherent, protective coating of copper on a uranium article comprising the steps of removing oxides and other surface contaminants from the surface of the uranium article, etching the uranium article in a chloride ion bath, pickling the uranium article in an acid bath, electrodepositing a flash layer of porous copper on the uranium article in a copper cyanide bath, heating the copper-layered uranium article in air or an inert atmosphere to a temperature below the melting temperature of copper and sufficient to volatilize and drive off through the porous flash layer volatile material entrapped under the flash layer, and thereafter electrodepositing on the flash layer of copper an adherent and essentially non-porous layer of copper in a bright acid copper bath.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.