Measuring U concentration in solution product of UF6 hydrolysis using a gamma ray densitometer

Abstract

AbstractUO2F2 is an intermediate in conversion of UF6 to uranium oxide or metal form and is a direct product of the reaction of UF6 with moisture in the air. UF6 will be continually hydrolyzed in the presence of water vapor. The amount of UF6 and H2O can be controlled during the hydrolysis reaction, if the concentration of U in the solution product of the hydrolysis be determined. In this paper, we have designed a γ-ray densitometer with 137Cs as gamma source with a medium energy of 662 keV for measuring the U concentration. In this research we have also studied the effect of two different activities of 10 mCi and 30 mCi on the measurement errors, and according to the results we chose the activity of 30 mCi with a relative error of 1.7 %. Finally, in order to investigate the effect of the temperature of the solution on the calibration of the apparatus, we calibrated our γ-ray densitometer for two temperatures of 15 and 80 °C and it was found that the temperature modification can be attained by software correction.