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Manhattan Project feed materials program
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Manhattan Project feed materials program
The Manhattan Project feed materials program located and procured uranium ores, and refined and processed them into feed materials for use in the Manhattan Project's isotope enrichment plants at the Clinton Engineer Works in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and its nuclear reactors at the Hanford Engineer Works in Washington state. The highly enriched uranium product of the enrichment plants and the plutonium from the reactors was used to make atomic bombs.
The original goal of the feed materials program in 1942 was to acquire approximately 1,500 metric tons (1,700 short tons) of triuranium octoxide (U3O8) (black oxide). By the time of the dissolution of the Manhattan District on 1 January 1947, it had acquired about 9,100 metric tons (10,000 short tons), 68.3% of which came from the Belgian Congo, 13.2% from the Colorado Plateau, and 11.1% from Canada. An additional 7.3% came from "miscellaneous sources", which included quantities recovered from Europe by the Manhattan Project's Alsos Mission.
Beyond their immediate wartime needs, the American and British governments attempted to control as much of the world's uranium deposits as possible. They created the Combined Development Trust in June 1944, with the director of the Manhattan Project, Major General Leslie R. Groves Jr. as its chairman. The Combined Development Trust procured uranium and thorium ores on international markets. A special account not subject to the usual auditing and controls was used to hold Trust monies. Between 1944 and his resignation from the Trust in 1947, Groves deposited a total of $37.5 million (equivalent to $669.83 million in 2024). In 1944, the Combined Development Trust purchased 3,440,000 pounds (1,560,000 kg) of uranium oxide ore from the Belgian Congo.
The raw ore was dissolved in nitric acid to produce uranyl nitrate, which was reduced to highly pure uranium dioxide. By July 1942, Mallinckrodt was producing a ton of oxide a day, but turning this into uranium metal initially proved more difficult. A branch of the Metallurgical Laboratory was established at Iowa State College in Ames, Iowa, under Frank Spedding to investigate alternatives. This became known as the Ames Project, and the Ames process it developed to produce uranium metal became available in 1943. Uranium metal was used to fuel the nuclear reactors. Uranium tetrachloride was produced as feed for the calutrons used in the Y-12 (electromagnetic) isotope separation process, and uranium hexafluoride for the K-25 (gaseous diffusion) separation process.
Uranium was discovered in 1789 by the German chemist and pharmacist Martin Heinrich Klaproth, who also established its useful commercial properties, such as its coloring effect on molten glass. It occurs in various ores, including pitchblende, torbernite, carnotite, and autunite. In the early 19th century it was recovered as a byproduct of mining other ores. Mining of uranium as the principal product began in Joachimsthal in Bohemia in about 1850, at the South Terras mine in Cornwall in 1873, and in Paradox Valley in Colorado in 1898.
A major deposit was found at Shinkolobwe in what was then the Belgian Congo in 1915, and extraction was begun by a Belgian mining company, Union Minière du Haut-Katanga, after the First World War. The first batch of uranium ore arrived in Belgium in December 1921. Only the richest uranium-bearing ore was exported to Olen, Belgium for the production of radium, a natural decay product of uranium, by Biraco, a subsidiary company of Union Minière du Haut Katanga. The metal became an important export of Belgium from 1922 up until World War II.
The high grade of the ore from the mine—65% or more triuranium octoxide (U3O8), known as black oxide, when most sites considered 0.03% to be good—enabled the company to dominate the market. Even the 2,000 metric tons (2,200 short tons) of tailings from the mine considered too poor to bother processing contained up to 20% uranium ore. Black oxide was mainly used as a glaze in the ceramics industry, which consumed about 140 metric tons (150 short tons) annually as a coloring agent for uranium tiles and uranium glass, and in 1941 sold for USD$4.52 per kilogram ($2.05/lb) (equivalent to $96/kg in 2024). Uranium nitrate (UO2(NO3)2) was used by the photographic industry, and sold for USD$5.20 per kilogram ($2.36/lb) (equivalent to $111/kg in 2024). The market for uranium was quite small, and by 1937, Union Minière had thirty years' supply on hand, so the mining and refining operations at Shinkolobwe were terminated.
The discovery of nuclear fission by chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann in December 1938, and its subsequent explanation, verification and naming by physicists Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch, opened up the possibility of uranium becoming an important new source of energy. In nature, uranium has three isotopes: uranium-238, which accounts for 99.28 per cent; uranium-235, 0.71 per cent; and uranium-234, less than 0.001 per cent. In Britain, in June 1939, Frisch and Rudolf Peierls investigated the critical mass of uranium-235, and found that it was small enough to be carried by contemporary bombers, making an atomic bomb possible. Their March 1940 Frisch–Peierls memorandum initiated Tube Alloys, the British atomic bomb project.
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Manhattan Project feed materials program
The Manhattan Project feed materials program located and procured uranium ores, and refined and processed them into feed materials for use in the Manhattan Project's isotope enrichment plants at the Clinton Engineer Works in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and its nuclear reactors at the Hanford Engineer Works in Washington state. The highly enriched uranium product of the enrichment plants and the plutonium from the reactors was used to make atomic bombs.
The original goal of the feed materials program in 1942 was to acquire approximately 1,500 metric tons (1,700 short tons) of triuranium octoxide (U3O8) (black oxide). By the time of the dissolution of the Manhattan District on 1 January 1947, it had acquired about 9,100 metric tons (10,000 short tons), 68.3% of which came from the Belgian Congo, 13.2% from the Colorado Plateau, and 11.1% from Canada. An additional 7.3% came from "miscellaneous sources", which included quantities recovered from Europe by the Manhattan Project's Alsos Mission.
Beyond their immediate wartime needs, the American and British governments attempted to control as much of the world's uranium deposits as possible. They created the Combined Development Trust in June 1944, with the director of the Manhattan Project, Major General Leslie R. Groves Jr. as its chairman. The Combined Development Trust procured uranium and thorium ores on international markets. A special account not subject to the usual auditing and controls was used to hold Trust monies. Between 1944 and his resignation from the Trust in 1947, Groves deposited a total of $37.5 million (equivalent to $669.83 million in 2024). In 1944, the Combined Development Trust purchased 3,440,000 pounds (1,560,000 kg) of uranium oxide ore from the Belgian Congo.
The raw ore was dissolved in nitric acid to produce uranyl nitrate, which was reduced to highly pure uranium dioxide. By July 1942, Mallinckrodt was producing a ton of oxide a day, but turning this into uranium metal initially proved more difficult. A branch of the Metallurgical Laboratory was established at Iowa State College in Ames, Iowa, under Frank Spedding to investigate alternatives. This became known as the Ames Project, and the Ames process it developed to produce uranium metal became available in 1943. Uranium metal was used to fuel the nuclear reactors. Uranium tetrachloride was produced as feed for the calutrons used in the Y-12 (electromagnetic) isotope separation process, and uranium hexafluoride for the K-25 (gaseous diffusion) separation process.
Uranium was discovered in 1789 by the German chemist and pharmacist Martin Heinrich Klaproth, who also established its useful commercial properties, such as its coloring effect on molten glass. It occurs in various ores, including pitchblende, torbernite, carnotite, and autunite. In the early 19th century it was recovered as a byproduct of mining other ores. Mining of uranium as the principal product began in Joachimsthal in Bohemia in about 1850, at the South Terras mine in Cornwall in 1873, and in Paradox Valley in Colorado in 1898.
A major deposit was found at Shinkolobwe in what was then the Belgian Congo in 1915, and extraction was begun by a Belgian mining company, Union Minière du Haut-Katanga, after the First World War. The first batch of uranium ore arrived in Belgium in December 1921. Only the richest uranium-bearing ore was exported to Olen, Belgium for the production of radium, a natural decay product of uranium, by Biraco, a subsidiary company of Union Minière du Haut Katanga. The metal became an important export of Belgium from 1922 up until World War II.
The high grade of the ore from the mine—65% or more triuranium octoxide (U3O8), known as black oxide, when most sites considered 0.03% to be good—enabled the company to dominate the market. Even the 2,000 metric tons (2,200 short tons) of tailings from the mine considered too poor to bother processing contained up to 20% uranium ore. Black oxide was mainly used as a glaze in the ceramics industry, which consumed about 140 metric tons (150 short tons) annually as a coloring agent for uranium tiles and uranium glass, and in 1941 sold for USD$4.52 per kilogram ($2.05/lb) (equivalent to $96/kg in 2024). Uranium nitrate (UO2(NO3)2) was used by the photographic industry, and sold for USD$5.20 per kilogram ($2.36/lb) (equivalent to $111/kg in 2024). The market for uranium was quite small, and by 1937, Union Minière had thirty years' supply on hand, so the mining and refining operations at Shinkolobwe were terminated.
The discovery of nuclear fission by chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann in December 1938, and its subsequent explanation, verification and naming by physicists Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch, opened up the possibility of uranium becoming an important new source of energy. In nature, uranium has three isotopes: uranium-238, which accounts for 99.28 per cent; uranium-235, 0.71 per cent; and uranium-234, less than 0.001 per cent. In Britain, in June 1939, Frisch and Rudolf Peierls investigated the critical mass of uranium-235, and found that it was small enough to be carried by contemporary bombers, making an atomic bomb possible. Their March 1940 Frisch–Peierls memorandum initiated Tube Alloys, the British atomic bomb project.
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