ZELENOGORSK /Krasnoyarsk Region/, September 14. /TASS/. The facility to process depleted uranium has been launched at the Electrochemical Plant in Zelenogorsk in Russia’s East Siberian Krasnoyarsk Region, which will enable the country to double its depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUHF) processing capacity, Rosatom Chief Executive Officer Alexey Likhachev said.

This is the second such facility in Russia for defluorination of depleted uranium hexafluoride, a compound of uranium and fluorine, with a capacity of 10,000 tons annually. The first facility also operates at the Electrochemical Plant.

"The launch of the new depleted uranium hexafluoride processing facility is a landmark event for the Electrochemical Plant, the fuel division [of Rosatom], and Russia’s entire nuclear industry <…>. The technology will help increase Russia’s DUHF de-fluorination capacity twofold to 20,000 tons per year and ensure the conversion of depleted uranium into a chemically safe form to store it without environmental risk," the chief executive was quoted as saying.

Considering the extensive work on fourth-generation nuclear technologies, "depleted uranium is no longer a production waste, it is becoming a strategic resource for the energy of the future," he stressed.

"Given growing global demand in uranium, as well as our next-generation technologies, any depleted uranium, regardless of its uranium-235 content, remains of enormous value to the industry. Our centrifuges enable highly efficient re-enrichment of DUHF, and the availability of fast reactors in Russia allows secondary nuclear materials, such as plutonium and depleted uranium to be used in nuclear fuel. Through DUHF defluorination, we achieve a closed-loop cycle not only for uranium but also for fluorine, which is returned to the conversion process," President of TVEL (managing company of Rosatom’s Fuel Division) Natalya Nikipelova was quoted as saying.

Fluorine-containing products obtained through hexafluoride defluorination are supplied to the market as certified chemical products. Since 2011, the Electrochemical Plant’s hydrofluoric products have been delivered to Rosatom enterprises as well as to customers in the chemical, metallurgical, mining, and oil and gas industries.