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Depleted uranium (DU) is uranium primarily composed of the isotope uranium-238 (U-238). Natural uranium is about 99.27 percent U-238, 0.72 percent U-235, and 0.0055 percent U-234. Because U-235 is used for fission in nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons, natural uranium is enriched in U-235 by separating the isotopes by mass. The byproduct of enrichment, called depleted uranium or DU, contains less than one third as much U-235 and U-234 as natural uranium. Because U-234 accounts for about half the radioactivity of natural uranium, the external radiation dose from DU is about 60 percent of that from the same mass of natural uranium. Another less common source of DU is reprocessed spent nuclear reactor fuel, which can be distinguished from DU produced as a byproduct of uranium enrichment by the presence of U-236, produced in reactors. In the past, DU has been called Q-metal, depletalloy, and D-38, but those names are no longer used.
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Wikipedia About Depleted Uranium
Depleted uranium (DU) is uranium primarily composed of the isotope uranium-238 (U-238). Natural uranium is about 99.27 percent U-238, 0.72 percent U-235, and 0.0055 percent U-234. Because U-235 is used for fission in nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons, natural uranium is enriched in U-235 by separating the isotopes by mass. The byproduct of enrichment, called depleted uranium or DU, contains less than one third as much U-235 and U-234 as natural uranium. Because U-234 accounts for about half the radioactivity of natural uranium, the external radiation dose from DU is about 60 percent of that from the same mass of natural uranium. Another less common source of DU is reprocessed spent nuclear reactor fuel, which can be distinguished from DU produced as a byproduct of uranium enrichment by the presence of U-236, produced in reactors. In the past, DU has been called Q-metal, depletalloy, and D-38, but those names are no longer used.
DU is used for its very high density of 19.1 g/cm3. Civilian uses include counterweights in aircraft, radiation shielding in medical radiation therapy and industrial radiography equipment, and containers used to transport radioactive materials. Military uses include defensive armor plating and armor-piercing projectiles.
Depleted uranium munitions are controversial because of unanswered questions about potential long-term health effects. DU is less toxic than other heavy metals such as arsenic and mercury, and is only very weakly radioactive because of its long half-life. While any radiation exposure has risks, no conclusive epidemiological data have correlated DU exposure to specific human health effects such as cancer. However, the UK government has attributed birth defect claims from a 1991 Gulf War combat veteran to DU poisoning,
History
Enriched uranium was first manufactured in the 1940s when the U.S. and USSR began their nuclear weapons and nuclear power programs. It was at this time that depleted uranium was first stored as an unusable waste product. There was some hope that the enrichment process would be improved and fissionable isotopes of U-235 could, at some future date, be extracted from the depleted uranium. This re-enrichment recovery of the residual uranium-235 contained in the depleted uranium is no longer a matter of the future: it has been practised for several years. Also, it is possible to design civilian power reactors with unenriched fuel, but only about 10 percent of reactors ever built utilize that technology, and both nuclear weapons production and naval reactors require the concentrated isotope.
