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Old 08-31-2010, 02:25 AM   #14
Urbane Guerrilla
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Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Southern California
Posts: 6,674
Sorry, but when you deplete uranium of the fissionable U-235 isotope, to enrich other mixes of isotopes of the metal, what is left is still DU -- either the initial metal refining or reprocessing of fuel rods. It is a considerably purer sample of U-238 than what you start with.

Quote:
The byproduct of enrichment, called depleted uranium or DU, contains less than one third as much U-235 and U-234 as natural uranium.
Quote:
Natural uranium metal contains about 0.71 percent U-235, 99.28 percent U-238, and about 0.0054 percent U-234. In order to produce enriched uranium, the process of isotope separation removes a substantial portion of the U-235 for use in nuclear power, weapons, or other uses. The remainder, depleted uranium, contains only 0.2 percent to 0.4 percent U-235. Because natural uranium begins with such a low percentage of U-235, enrichment produces large quantities of depleted uranium. For example, producing 1 kg of five percent enriched uranium requires 11.8 kg of natural uranium, and leaves about 10.8 kg of depleted uranium with only 0.3 percent U-235 remaining.
And that was just Wikipedia, FWIW. Wanna dig deeper? Sundry links this page.
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