Who Was MED's Largest Ore-to-Metal Producer?

I believe that what you said in a recent posting about Electromet (the Electro Metallurgical Company of Niagara Falls), is incorrect, i.e., that Electromet was the biggest MED ore-to-metal production plant and that it produced most of the fuel for CP-1 and CP-2. Please recheck your sources.

Second, I am working on the NIOSH dose reconstruction project, which is being conducted by Oak Ridge Associated Universities, partnering with Dade Moeller & Associates and with MJW Corporation (my employer). As part of the work, some of us are researching the MED/AEC (Manhattan Engineering District/Atomic Energy Commission) history of various Atomic Weapons Employers and DOE sites to establish the operational history and source bases. This includes poring over all kinds of technical documentation, much of which was contemporary with the production era. I am the principal person doing this for the Mallinckrodt St. Louis downtown site.

From about 1942 to some time in the 1950's, the title of biggest producer certainly belonged to Mallinckrodt. First, for about 15 years Mallinckrodt produced metal from ore, as follows: ore to UO3 (orange oxide) to UO2 (brown oxide) to UF4 (green salt) to metal. As DOE 1997 said, during the war "Mallinckrodt produced about two thirds of the UO2 while Du Pont produced most of the remaining third....Linde and Harshaw also produced UO2....However, more than half of the Du Pont product came from uranium peroxide obtained by processing uranium-bearing scrap" (i.e., not from ore) (United States Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Environmental Management. Linking Legacies: Connecting the Cold War Nuclear Weapons Production Processes to their Environmental Consequences. DOE/EM-3019; Appendix B; January 1997).

MED 1949 said that "About 20% of this [Mallinckrodt's] brown oxide is sent to Harshaw [to be made into UF4 and UF6]....Of the balance, about 80% [i.e., ~80% of the remaining 80%] is used by the Mallinckrodt Chemical Co. where it is fluorinated to the green salt (UF4) [and] reduced with magnesium to the biscuit metal...." (United States Government, Manhattan Engineer District (MED) Division of Technical Advisors. Uranium Metal Production. Memorandum from F. G. Stroke to Manhattan Engineer District Files; 4 March 1949). DOE 1997 said that "by July 1942, Mallinckrodt was producing a ton of uranium oxide a day. It is estimated that Mallinckrodt processed more than 45,000 metric tons (50,000 tons) of natural uranium products (as the ore) at its facilities between 1942 and 1957" (United States Department of Energy (DOE), Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP). Management Action Process Document for the St. Louis, Missouri FUSRAP sites. Draft; March 1996).

US ACE 1946 is a good reference for the immediate postwar years (United States War Department, Corps of Engineers (US ACE), Office of the District Engineer, Manhattan District. Desciption of Uranium Producing Processes. Memorandum from Major W. E. Gates to the Area Engineer (Madison Square Area); 17 October 1946). It confirms that Electromet produced metal from green salt (but not that they produced green salt) at the rate of about 45 tons of metal billets per month, when they produced it: as of October 1946, according to ACE 1946, the Electromet plant was in standby mode. MED 1949 states that about 20% of Mallinckrodt's brown oxide was sent to Linde Products to be made into green salt, from which it was sent to Electromet to be made into metal. (This was the 16+% left over after Mallinckrodt sent 20% off to Linde and kept 64% to process itself.) DOE 1997, though, says that Electromet shipped some UF4 to Mallinckrodt to be made into metal as late as 1949 (implying that Electromet made UF4), but it doesn't say that Electromet was then producing any metal.

Also per DOE 1997, "Inside Building 51 of the Mallinckrodt Chemical Works, 40 tons of purified uranium were produced for Fermi's Chicago pile [CP-1]". This was in the form of uranium oxide and was further mechanically processed into fuel by workers at, I believe, the University of Chicago. DOE 1997 says that "CP-1 was disassembled and rebuilt at the Palos Forest Preserve outside Chicago as CP-2". Perhaps someone else can fill you in about the details of that. This information implies that the uranium fuel was produced by Mallinckrodt up to the mechanical finishing step.