Federal Regulators have given the green light to a company that plans to extract fluorine using the first commercial-scale uranium deconversion plant of its kind in the country.
In a release Tuesday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced it had granted a license to International Isotopes Fluorine Products to build and operate the facility in Lea County, N.M. The license permits the processing of about 8 million pounds of depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) yearly. It will extract high-purity fluoride compounds and anhydrous hydrogen fluoride from the gas while leaving the uranium behind in oxide compounds that are more stable than DUF6 and considered low-level nuclear waste. Fluorine products can be used in the manufacture of semiconductors, solar panels and other electronics.
The facility will be proximate to a recently built uranium enrichment plant owned by Urenco USA (formerly Louisiana Enrichment Services), which produces DUF6 as a waste product. According to International Isotopes, the company has conducted testing using a high-purity fluoride gas production pilot plant in Idaho since 2006.