US 5,666,639 A · CRISLA process and apparatus

Abstract

Nozzle cooling and wall contact prevention control are included in a gaseous CRISLA apparatus, along with removable collectors, and the efficient use of one or more currently available high power lasers to produce a commercially economic isotope separation process. The wall contact prevention is accomplished with gaseous boundary layers, and a supersonic nozzle normally is used to cool and separate excitation bands of the isotopic material. Non-intermixing gaseous streams with different isotopic assays can be created in a single nozzle chamber and segmented collection chamber, which along with recirculation loops and compressors, allows a single laser system and a single nozzle system to be used to selectively excite the isotopic material while it makes multiple passes through the laser beams of the laser system until only a small fraction of the desired isotope remains to be separated. The process is especially effective in separating .sup.235 UF.sub.6 from a gaseous mixture of .sup.235 UF.sub.6 and .sup.238 UF.sub.6.

Claims57

Dependent claims

A system for the separation of isotopic molecules having at least two isotopes of the same atom therein, including:

a source of the isotopic molecules in gaseous form at at least a first pressure;
a source of carrier gas at at least said first pressure;
a supersonic nozzle structure connected to said sources and having:
a nozzle throat through which the gaseous isotopic molecules and carrier gas introduced up stream thereof at said at least first pressure flow sonically;
and
an expansion chamber positioned downstream from said nozzle throat shaped so that the gaseous isotopic molecules and carrier gas become supersonic and supercooled thereat, said expansion chamber including:
means to selectively excite, from a first energy level to at least a second energy level, first isotopic molecules having a desired isotope therein with photons of at least a first wavelength while the first isotopic molecules are in said expansion chamber;
means to mix at least one reactant gas with excited isotopic molecules so that said at least one reactant gas chemically reacts with excited isotopic molecules to form a compound;
collection chamber means positioned downstream from said expansion chamber, said expansion chamber and said collection chamber means having:
walls generally parallel to flow through said nozzle throat;
and
means to gaseously shield the excited isotopic molecules from said walls.

9 more elements

A system for separating .sup.235 U and .sup.238 U including:

a source of UF.sub.6 gas;
a source of inert carrier gas;
a nozzle structure having:
a nozzle throat in flow connection to said gas sources so that a UF.sub.6 gas and inert carrier gas mixture flow there through;
and
an expansion chamber positioned downstream from said nozzle throat, said expansion chamber including:
means to isotopically selectively excite UF.sub.6 molecules in the gas mixture with photons of at least one predetermined wavelength at least to a predetermined vibrational energy level while the UF.sub.6 gas is in said expansion chamber;
means to mix at least one reactant gas with the excited UF.sub.6 molecules so that the excited UF.sub.6 molecules chemically react with the reactant gas to form a first Uranium compound other than UF.sub.6, that is enriched with a selected one of the Uranium isotopes;
and
collection means positioned downstream from said expansion chamber including:
at least one collection surface for collecting the first Uranium compound;
and
means for cleaning said at least one collection surface of Uranium compound.

10 more elements

An apparatus for the separation of isotopic molecules having at least two isotopes of the same atom therein, including:

a supersonic nozzle structure connected to sources of the isotopic molecules in gaseous form and carrier gas, said supersonic nozzle structure having:
a nozzle throat through which the gaseous isotopic molecules and carrier gas introduced up stream thereof at said at least first pressure flow sonically;
and
an expansion chamber positioned downstream from said nozzle throat shaped so that the gaseous isotopic molecules and carrier gas become supersonic and supercooled thereat, said expansion chamber including:
means for selectively exciting, from a first energy level to at least a second energy level, first isotopic molecules having a desired isotope therein with photons of at least a first wavelength while the first isotopic molecules are in said expansion chamber;
means for mixing at least one reactant gas with isotopic molecules excited by said means for selectively exciting so that said at least one reactant gas can chemically react with excited isotopic molecules to form a isotopic compound;
collection chamber means positioned downstream from said expansion chamber for collecting isotopic compound, said expansion chamber and said collection chamber means having:
walls generally parallel to flow through said nozzle throat;
and
means to gaseously shield the excited isotopic molecules from said walls.

7 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

CRISLA process and apparatus

Life of this patent

CRISLA process and apparatus

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims57