New Crusher for Uranium Processing
September 11, 2009
Time to kick it up a notch in the uranium kitchen, since I got tired of crushing ore solely by hand with a hammer. The new equipment to turn big rocks into very small rocks consists of a three-inch jaw crusher made by Al Yates, coupled to a 3.75-horsepower Briggs & Stratton Model #094202 gas engine. To match the engine’s 3600 RPM at full throttle down to a safe speed at the crusher cam (and store some rotational energy for particularly resistant rocks), a 1.75″ pulley is used on the engine shaft and a heavy 11.75″ cast-iron pulley on the crusher shaft (both from McMaster-Carr). The belt is a standard A50 size. The whole deal is mounted on a wooden base.
This crusher can produce about 15 kg (a two-gallon pail) per hour of fine rock flour from 1-3″ Utah uranium ore. It would take many tedious days to accomplish this with a hammer, seives, and a ball mill. Now the slow step in my artisanal mining and processing scheme is acid leaching, and the attendant gravity filtration of sediment in the leachate.
Coming up soon…a look at the PUREX process—solvent extraction of uranyl nitrate into an organic phase.
Special Nuclear Material 
Simpler easier way to do this is to heat up the rocks in a kiln to red hot and sinter by dropping them in cold water. Then ball milling the finely divided particles.
Ya heat up some quartz’s rock and see if want to pick it up and put it in water hahaha good idea
Hello, I sprinkle beryllium powder on the 0.7 μ CI americium source of smoke alarm, and then put it on the indium sheet. After a few hours, the test reading with Geiger counter did not rise. How can I get the core of americium source out?