Uraninite named, was either unknown, impossible or not economically feasible). The mineral has been known at least since the 15th century from silver mines in the Ore Mountains, on the German/Czech border. The type locality is the historic mining and spa town known as Joachimsthal, the modern day Jáchymov, on the Czech side of the mountains, where F. E. Brückmann described the mineral in 1772. Pitchblende from the Johanngeorgenstadt deposit in Germany was used by M. Klaproth in 1789 to discover the element uranium. All uraninite minerals contain a small amount of radium as a radioactive decay product of uranium. Marie
Uranium metallurgy to any appreciable extent that is fissile, that is, fissionable by thermal neutrons. The isotope U is also important because it absorbs neutrons to produce a radioactive isotope that subsequently decays to the isotope 239Pu (plutonium), which also is fissile. Uranium in its natural state comprises just 0.71% U and 99.3% U, and the main focus of uranium metallurgy is the enrichment of uranium through isotope separation. Uranium metallurgy In materials science and materials engineering, uranium metallurgy is the study of the physical and chemical behavior of uranium and its alloys. Commercial-grade uranium can be produced through the reduction of