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What is fuel enrichment?

Updated: 9/14/2023
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15y ago

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Natural uranium contains about 0.7 percent of uranium 235 which is fissile, the rest is uranium 238 which is not. Reactors that use graphite or heavy water moderators can operate with natural uranium, but light water reactors cannot because the water absorbs too many neutrons. Therefore the fuel for this type of reactor has to be enriched, which means the U 235 is increased to about 4 percent. This is done using the gaseous uranium hexafluoride, either by gaseous diffusion or by centrifuging which is the modern way to do it and uses much less power than diffusion.

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