Chemistry of Uranium

This book contains six chapters organized into three sections that cover various aspects of the chemistry of uranium. Each chapter has been authored to take a deep dive into a particular area of uranium chemistry. Within Section A, “Engineering Information,” the authors present an introduction to uranium production and use as a nuclear fuel. The first chapter is written with a keen eye toward the future of the nuclear power industry, with discussion of waste management and next-generation reactor technology. In the second chapter, Palanki has produced authoritative coverage of uranium materials processing, focusing on UO2 processing and sintering for the fuel pellets that are the primary source for the current generation of nuclear reactors. The amount of knowledge contained within that chapter is impressive and reflects the author’s decades of experience. In Section B, “Energetic Interactions,” the authors present two chapters on aspects of UF6 chemistry, detailing reactions between UF6 and organic surfaces, and a computational study investigating UF6 interactions with a host of organic functional groups. In Section C, “Environmental Implications,” a team of authors focus on uranium content in water bodies from a global perspective, with a particular examination of these impacts in India. The final chapter includes work from the Cerrato group at the University of New Mexico investigating uranium’s environmental fate and summarizing transport properties from mine wastes.