Magnesiothermic reduction kinetics of UF4.

Agarwal, Renu; Raina, Amulya; Gupta, Neeraj Kumar

The most popular method for production of metallic uranium is by magnesiothermic reduction of UF4. Efficient production of good quality uranium metal chunk in the reaction vessel requires multiple parameter constraints. To theoretically optimize these process parameters, many basic properties, i.e. particle size, heat dissipation, packing density, heating rate, kinetic parameters of reaction, etc., are required. There was lack of information on kinetic parameters of this reaction; therefore, kinetic triplets of UF4 and magnesium metal reaction were determined by non-isothermal DTA method, at 5–20 K min−1 heating rates. The analysis of data was done by model-less methods and model-fitting methods. It was found that the reaction takes place through two parallel competitive mechanisms, bulk diffusion and first-order nucleation and growth of reaction sites, and the corresponding kinetic parameters, frequency factors and activation energies, were 440 min−1, 43.9 kJ mol−1, 420 min−1 and 49.03 kJ mol−1, respectively.

Journal of Thermal Analysis & Calorimetry, 2021, Vol 143, Issue 4, p3353

1388-6150

Academic Journal

10.1007/s10973-020-10359-w