Ingestion of high concentrations of uranium, however, can cause severe health effects, such as cancer of the bone or liver. Inhaling large concentrations of uranium can cause lung cancer from the exposure to alpha particles.
Uranium is also a toxic chemical, meaning that ingestion of uranium can cause kidney damage from its chemical properties much sooner than its radioactive properties would cause cancers of the bone or liver.
Skip directly to site content Skip directly to page options Skip directly to A-Z link. Radiation Emergencies. Section Navigation. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Syndicate. Radioisotope Brief: Uranium. Minus Related Pages. Where does it come from? What form is it in? Uranium occurs naturally in low concentrations in soil, rock and water, and is commercially extracted from uranium-bearing minerals such as uraninite. Uranium ore can be mined from open pits or underground excavations.
The ore can then be crushed and treated at a mill to separate the valuable uranium from the ore. Uranium may also be dissolved directly from the ore deposits in the ground in-situ leaching and pumped to the surface. Uranium mined from the earth is stored, handled, and sold as uranium oxide concentrate U 3 O 8. Uranium was discovered in by Martin Klaproth, a German chemist, who isolated an oxide of uranium while analyzing pitchblende samples from the Joachimsthal silver mines in the former Kingdom of Bohemia, located in the present day Czech Republic.
Uranium is referred to as a fissile element because it is capable of undergoing fission. For many years, uranium was used primarily as a colorant for ceramic glazes and for tinting in early photography. Nuclear fuel pellets, with each pellet — not much larger than a sugar cube — contains as much energy as a tonne of coal Image: Kazatomprom. Uranium is found in small amounts in most rocks, and even in seawater. Historically, conventional mines e.
After mining, the ore is crushed in a mill, where water is added to produce a slurry of fine ore particles and other materials.
The slurry is leached with sulfuric acid or an alkaline solution to dissolve the uranium, leaving the remaining rock and other minerals undissolved. However, over half of the world's uranium mines now use a method called in-situ leaching, where the mining is accomplished without any major ground disturbance. Water injected with oxygen or an alkali, acid or other oxidizing solution is circulated through the uranium ore, extracting the uranium.
The uranium solution is then pumped to the surface. The vast majority of nuclear power reactors use the isotope uranium as fuel; however, it only makes up 0. This increases the uranium concentration from 0.
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