Manhattan Project feed materials program: Difference between revisions

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A major deposit was found at [[Shinkolobwe]] in what was then the [[Belgian Congo]] in 1915, and extraction was begun by a Belgian mining company, [[Union Minière du Haut-Katanga]], after the First World War. The first batch of uranium ore arrived in Belgium in December 1921.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Vanthemsche |first=Guy |title=Belgium and the Congo, 1885-1980 |date=2012 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-19421-1 |___location=Cambridge |pages=192}}</ref> Only the richest uranium-bearing ore was exported to [[Olen, Belgium]] for the production of [[radium]] metal by [[Biraco]], a subsidiary company of Union Minière du Haut Katanga. The metal became an important export of Belgium from 1922 up until World War II.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Adams |first=A |date=January 1993 |title=The origin and early development of the Belgian radium industry |url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/016041209390274L |journal=Environment International |volume=19 |issue=5 |pages=491–501 |bibcode=1993EnInt..19..491A |doi=10.1016/0160-4120(93)90274-l |issn=0160-4120}}</ref>

The high grade of the ore from the mine—65% or more [[triuranium octoxide]]) ({{chem2|U3O8}}), known as black oxide, when most sites considered 0.03% to be good—enabled the company to dominate the market. Even the 2,000 tonnes of tailings from the mine considered too poor to bother processing contained up to 20% uranium ore.{{sfn|Manhattan District|1947a|pp=S4–S5}}{{sfn|Nichols|1987|p=47}}<ref>{{cite news |date=4 August 2020 |first=Frank |last=Swain |title=The forgotten mine that built the atomic bomb |publisher=BBC |url=https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200803-the-forgotten-mine-that-built-the-atomic-bomb |access-date=19 February 2025 |archive-date=30 January 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250130075136/https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200803-the-forgotten-mine-that-built-the-atomic-bomb |url-status=live }}</ref> Black oxide was mainly used byas a glaze in the ceramics industry, which consumed about {{convert|150|ST|t|order=flip}} annually as a coloring agent for [[uranium tiles]] and [[uranium glass]], and in 1941 sold for USD{{convert|2.05|$/lb|2|order=flip}} (equivalent to ${{Inflation|US|{{convert|2.05|/lb|order=flip|disp=number}}|1941}}/kg in {{Inflation/year|US}}). [[Uranium nitrate]] ({{chem2|UO2(NO3)2}}) was used by the photographic industry, and sold for USD{{convert|2.36|$/lb|2|order=flip}} (equivalent to ${{Inflation|US|{{convert|2.36|/lb|order=flip|disp=number}}|1941}}/kg in {{Inflation/year|US}}).{{sfn|Manhattan District|1947a|pp=5.1–5.2}} The market for uranium was quite small, and by 1937, Union Minière had thirty years' supply on hand, so the mining and refining operations at Shinkolobwe were terminated.{{sfn|Manhattan District|1947a|pp=S4–S5}}

The [[discovery of nuclear fission]] by chemists [[Otto Hahn]] and [[Fritz Strassmann]] in December 1938, and its subsequent explanation, verification and naming by physicists [[Lise Meitner]] and [[Otto Frisch]], opened up the possibility of uranium becoming an important new source of energy.{{sfn|Hewlett|Anderson|1962|pp=10–11}} In nature, uranium has three [[isotope]]s: [[uranium-238]], which accounts for 99.28 per cent; [[uranium-235]], 0.71 per cent; and [[uranium-234]], less than 0.001 per cent.{{sfn|Jones|1985|pp=8–9}} In Britain, in June 1939, Frisch and [[Rudolf Peierls]] investigated the [[critical mass]] of uranium-235,{{sfn|Rhodes|1986|pp=322–325}} and found that it was small enough to be carried by contemporary bombers, making an [[atomic bomb]] possible. Their March 1940 [[Frisch–Peierls memorandum]] initiated [[Tube Alloys]], the British atomic bomb project.{{sfn|Hewlett|Anderson|1962|pp=39–42}}