Uranium

Have you heard of in-situ technique? Most uranium mining is done through that technique. In-situ technique is a method does not involve digging at the surface nor underground. The minerals we get from this technique is mostly soluble such as uranium oxide, sodium sulfate such as potash, potassium chloride, sodium sulfate and uranium oxide can also be dissolved in water.

Uranium is also used as a coloring agent in uranium glass, creating orange-red to yellow shades. It was also used for tithing and shading in early on photography. Uranium turns silvery white, squashy and somewhat paramagnetic when cultured. It is sometimes malleable and ductile; weakly radioactive metal, which is slightly softer then steel. Moreover, uranium metal has extremely high thickness, being in the region of 70% more crowded than lead, nevertheless to some extent less dense than gold. Uranium, in fact, has very high density than led, yet slightly less dense then gold. And it can react with cold water and in air. Uranium metal becomes coated with a dark layer of uranium oxide. Moreover, Uranium in ores is extracted chemically and converted into uranium dioxide or other chemical forms functional in the industry.

History and Pre-discovery use

Francis Perrin, a French physicist discovered ores deposits in 1972 at the Oklo mine in Gabon, West Africa. The use of uranium in its natural oxide form dates back. Yellow glass with 1% uranium oxide was found in a roman villa in Naples, Italy in 1912. However, in the late middle ages, pitchblende was extracted from the Habsburg silver mines in Bohemia and was used as a coloring agent in the local glassmaking industry. Then, in the early 19^th century, the world’s only known sources of uranium ore were these mines.