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[[File:Uranium processing.png|thumb|right|upright=1.3|Chart describing the processing of uranium]]
The '''Manhattan Project feed materials program''' located and procured [[uranium ore]]s, and refined and processed them into feed materials for use in the [[Manhattan Project]]'s [[isotope enrichment]] plants at the [[Clinton Engineer Works]] in [[Oak Ridge, Tennessee]], and its [[nuclear reactor]]s at the [[Hanford Engineer Works]] in [[Washington state]].
The original goal of the feed materials program in 1942 was to acquire approximately {{convert|1,700|ST|t|order=flip}} of [[triuranium octoxide]] ({{chem2|U3O8}}) (black oxide). By the time of the dissolution of the Manhattan District on 1 January 1947, it had acquired about {{convert|10,000|ST|order=flip}}, 72% of which came from the [[Belgian Congo]], 14% from the [[Colorado Plateau]], and 9% from Canada. An additional 5% came from "miscellaneous sources", which included quantities recovered from Europe by the Manhattan Project's [[Alsos Mission]].
Ores from the Belgian Congo contained the most uranium per mass of rock by far. Much of the mined ore from the [[Shinkolobwe]] mine had a black oxide content as high as 65% to 75%, which was many times higher than any other global sources. In comparison, the Canadian ores could be as rich as 30% uranium oxides, while American ores, mostly byproducts of the mining of other minerals (especially [[vanadium]]), typically contained less than 1% uranium. In 1941, both the Shinkolobwe mine and the [[Eldorado Mine (Northwest Territories)|Eldorado Mine]] in Canada were closed and flooded; the Manhattan Project had them reopened and returned to service.
Beyond their immediate wartime needs, the American and British governments attempted to control as much of the world's uranium deposits as possible. They created the [[Combined Development Trust]] in June 1944, with the director of the Manhattan Project, [[Major General (United States)|Major General]] [[Leslie R. Groves Jr.]] as its chairman. The Combined Development Trust procured uranium and [[thorium#Occurrence|thorium ores]] on international markets. A special account not subject to the usual auditing and controls was used to hold Trust monies. Between 1944 and his resignation from the Trust in 1947, Groves deposited a total of $37.5 million (equivalent to ${{Inflation|US|37.5|1944|r=2}} million in {{Inflation/year|US}}). In 1944, the Combined Development Trust purchased {{convert|3440000|lb|kg}} of uranium oxide ore from the Belgian Congo.
The raw ore was dissolved in [[nitric acid]] to produce [[uranyl nitrate]], which was reduced to highly pure [[uranium dioxide]]. By July 1942, [[Mallinckrodt]] was producing a ton of highly pure oxide a day, but turning this into uranium metal initially proved more difficult. A branch of the [[Metallurgical Laboratory]] was established at [[Iowa State College]] in [[Ames, Iowa]], under [[Frank Spedding]] to investigate alternatives. This became known as the [[Ames Project]], and the [[Ames process]] it developed to produce uranium metal became available in 1943. Uranium metal was used to fuel the nuclear reactors. [[Uranium tetrachloride]] was produced as feed for the [[calutron]]s used in the Y-12 electromagnetic isotope separation process, and [[uranium hexafluoride]] as feed in the K-25 [[gaseous diffusion]] process.
== Background ==
{{main|Uranium}}
[[Uranium]] was discovered in 1789 by the German chemist and pharmacist [[Martin Heinrich Klaproth]], who also established its useful commercial properties, such as its coloring effect on molten glass. It occurs in various ores, including [[pitchblende]], [[torbernite]], [[carnotite]], and [[autunite]]. In the early 19th century it was recovered as a byproduct of mining other ores. Mining of uranium as the principal product began in [[Jáchymov|Joachimsthal]] in [[Bohemia]] in about 1850, at the [[South Terras mine]] in [[Cornwall]] in 1873, and in [[Paradox Valley]] in Colorado in 1898.{{sfn|Dahlkamp|1993|pp=5–7}}
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