Qualitative assessment of uranium ore concentrates and related materials using scanning electron microscopy

Several studies have evaluated the morphology of uranium compounds produced under controlled conditions at the laboratory scale, but it is unclear whether the morphological characteristics of these materials persist in commercially produced uranium ore concentrates (UOCs). To assess the morphology i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of radioanalytical and nuclear chemistry 2022-12, Vol.331 (12), p.5053-5060
Main Authors: Said, Meena, Marks, Naomi E., Dai, Zurong, Lindvall, Rachel E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Chemical composition
Chemistry
Chemistry and Materials Science
Diagnostic Radiology
Electron microscopy
Evaluation
Forensic sciences
Hadrons
Heavy Ions
Inorganic Chemistry
Machine learning
Morphology
Nuclear Chemistry
Nuclear energy
nuclear forensics
Nuclear fuel cycle
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
Nuclear Physics
Physical Chemistry
scanning electron microscope
U3O8
Uranium
Uranium compounds
uranium ore concentrates
Uranium ores
yellowcake
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Summary:Several studies have evaluated the morphology of uranium compounds produced under controlled conditions at the laboratory scale, but it is unclear whether the morphological characteristics of these materials persist in commercially produced uranium ore concentrates (UOCs). To assess the morphology in “real-world” UOCs, we qualitatively evaluated the morphological profile of secondary electron images from over 100 commercial UOCs using a previously published lexicon. We observe differences between samples with differing chemical composition and samples with similar chemical composition and differing provenance. This work contextualizes morphology for commercially produced UOCs and will provide a basis for future machine learning efforts.
ISSN:0236-5731
1588-2780
DOI:10.1007/s10967-022-08605-6