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Re: Re DU source and Gulf Illness

To: Lessler.Richard@epamail.epa.gov, radsafe-digest@list.vanderbilt.edu
Subject: Re: Re DU source and Gulf Illness
From: RuthWeiner@AOL.COM
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 10:24:58 EDT
CC: BobCherry@AOL.COM
Reply-To: RuthWeiner@AOL.COM
Sender: owner-radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu

I may be off base, but it seems to me that irradiated fuel from a reactor would contain sufficient fission products that it could not be used for enrichment and therefore not be used to produce DU. If one taleks material from Pu production (which stopped 14 years ago) and .strips out the fission products (essentially, material that has been reprocessed) there might be some actinides left. However, all actinides do not form hexafluorides like uranium. The biggest non-natural component of DU is most likely another uranium isotope. But these would be present in trace amounts and on;ly U232 has a specific activity of any significance at all. Uranium forms UF6 because the +6 odixation state of U is quite stable, unlike the +6 oxidation state of Pu, for example.

RuthF. Weiner, Ph. D.
ruthweiner@aol.com

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