page_title: Bismuth phosphate process
section_title: Process
hierarchical_section_title: Bismuth phosphate process / Process
caption_attribution_description: English: The T Plant was the first chemical processing and separations plant of its kind in the world. Construction began in 1943, with the plant becoming operational in 1945. Nicknamed the “Queen Mary” since T Plant was long and thin like the well known ocean liner, this facility was used to take the irradiated fuel rods that had been in the B Reactor and expose them to a series of chemical processes. The chemicals were needed to dissolve away the fuel rods themselves, allowing workers to access and then extract the tiny amount of plutonium that was produced when the rods were involved in nuclear chain reactions in the reactors.
context_page_description: The bismuth-phosphate process was used to extract plutonium from irradiated uranium taken from nuclear reactors. It was developed during World War II by Stanley G. Thompson, a chemist working for the Manhattan Project at the University of California, Berkeley. This process was used to produce plutonium at the Hanford Site. Plutonium was used in the atomic bomb that was used in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in August 1945. The process was superseded in the 1950s by the REDOX and PUREX processes.
context_section_description: The bismuth phosphate process involved taking the irradiated uranium fuel slugs and removing their aluminium cladding. Because there were highly radioactive fission products inside, this had to be done remotely behind a thick concrete barrier. This was done in the "Canyons" (B and T buildings) at Hanford. The slugs were dumped into boiling sodium hydroxide to which sodium nitrate was added. With the aluminium jackets removed, a dissolver was charged with about three tons of unclad slugs. Nitric acid was added to dissolve about one ton at a time.
  The second step was to separate the plutonium from the uranium and the fission products. Bismuth nitrate and phosphoric acid were added, producing bismuth phosphate, which was precipitated carrying the plutonium with it. This was very similar to the lanthanum fluoride process, in which lanthanum fluoride was used as the carrier. The precipitate was removed from the solution with a centrifuge and the liquid discharged as waste. Getting rid of the fission products reduced the gamma radiation by 90 percent. The precipitate was a plutonium-containing cake which was placed in another tank and dissolved in nitric acid. Sodium bismuthate or potassium permanganate was added to oxidize the plutonium. Plutonium would be carried by the bismuth phosphate in the tetravalent state but not in the hexavalent state. The bismuth phosphate would then be precipitated as a by product, leaving the plutonium behind in solution.
  This step was then repeated in the third step. The plutonium was reduced again by adding ferrous ammonium sulfate. Bismuth nitrate and phosphoric acid were added and bismuth phosphate precipitated. It was dissolved in nitric acid and the bismuth phosphate was precipitated. This step resulted in reducing the gamma radiation by four more orders of magnitude, so the plutonium-bearing solution now had 100,000-th of the original gamma radiation. The plutonium solution was transferred from the 224 buildings to the 221 buildings, through underground pipes. In the fourth step, phosphoric acid was added and the bismuth phosphate precipitated and removed; potassium permanganate was added to oxidize the plutonium.
  In the "crossover" step, the lanthanum fluoride process was used. Lanthanum salts and hydrogen fluoride were added again and lanthanum fluoride was precipitated, while hexavalent plutonium was left in solution.  This removed lanthanides like cerium, strontium and lanthanum, that bismuth phosphate could not. The plutonium was again reduced with oxalic acid and the lanthanum fluoride process was repeated. This time potassium hydroxide was added to metathesize the solution. Liquid was removed with a centrifuge and the solid dissolved in nitric acid to form plutonium nitrate. At this point, a 330-US-gallon (1,200 l) batch sent would have been concentrated to 8 US gallons (30 l).
  The final step was carried out at the 231-Z building, where hydrogen peroxide, sulfates and ammonium nitrate were added to the solution and the hexavalent plutonium was precipitated as plutonium peroxide. This was dissolved in nitric acid and put into shipping cans, which were boiled in hot air to produce a plutonium nitrate paste. Each can weighed about 1 kg  and was shipped to the Los Alamos Laboratory. Shipments were made in a truck carrying twenty cans and the first arrived at Los Alamos  on 2 February 1945. The plutonium was used in the Fat Man bomb design tested in the Trinity nuclear test on 16 July 1945, and in the bombing of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945.
caption: The T Plant was the first plutonium separation plant. It was nicknamed the “Queen Mary” for its resemblance to the ocean liner.
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D200", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "200", "Image YResolution": "200", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2009:12:08 14:47:25", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "228", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "914", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6830", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/2000", "EXIF FNumber": "5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Shutter Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:05:15 09:41:22", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:05:15 09:41:22", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "22/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Flash", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "44", "EXIF SubSecTime": "65", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "65", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "65", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "753", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "504", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 1, 0, 2, 1]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "66", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}