How exactly URANIUM gets Enriched or Ready for a Nuke or a power plant ?

Question

I listen alot on news that Iran is enriching the URANIUM to make nuclear weapons, I dont want you guys to start a controvercy on over iran and its nuclear program but what i really want to know is, how exactly they make Uranium enriched and operational for a nuclear reactor and a nuclear bomb ?

Answer 1

Natual uranium doesn't have enough of the most fissile isotope, which is a teeny tiny bit lighter than the most common isotope.  So one way to separate it out is to make the Uranium into a gas (like uranium hexafloride) and then run it through a centrifuge and filter off the lightest stuff.  You can do it in stages and eventually get up to the concentrations you need.

Answer 2

Well i could tell you..... then you would have to be eliminated

Answer 3

Enriching is concentrating the lighter isotope of uranium, uranium having an atomic weight of 235 atomic mass units (called "U-235"), from the much more common isotopes, primarily U-238. Since they're both the same element, chemical methods can't be used to separate the two. Methods that use the difference in mass or weight must be used.

One method is gas diffusion: make uranium hexafluoride gas, and pass it through many diffusion screens. Since heavier stuff diffuses more slowly, you can gradually separate the heavier from the lighter molecules.

Another method is centrifuging; spinning material at high speed makes the heavier stuff settle lower down in whatever is being spun.

U-235 nuclei, when hit by neutrons, will split and give off neutrons themselves, which will in turn hit more nuclei. Thus they are desired for atomic bombs, which use such chain reactions to lead to an atomic detonation. U-238 nuclei are not so likely to participate in chain reactions.

Uranium that has had almost all the U-235 removed and is almost all U-238 is called "depleted," in contrast to the term "enriched."  

Answer 4

There's several ways to do it. The Manhattan Project used mass diffusion to separate the isotopes. But it can be done a lot more cheaply today using lasers to cause differential ionization between U238 and U235, after which a magnetic field can separate them. A centrifuge can also be used, I think.