Preface

This book deals with the topics related to uranium through seven chapters, with the first five chapters covering the entirety and the formation of uranium and its composition in the raw materials and methods of mining and extraction and separation by different techniques such as solvent extraction, ion exchanges, precipitation, or membrane contactor. It also deals with the safety of nuclear reactors and fuel, as well as the uses of plutonium and uranium enrichment units and its physical and chemical properties. Chapters 6 and 7 deal with the calculations of electrochemical and thermodynamic properties of La, Nd, and U and the fac‐ tors of separation of uranium from the fission products as well as calculations of the thermo‐ dynamics of uranium in the soil environment. This book contains must-read materials for students, engineers, chemists, physicists, and researchers working in the area of safety, mon‐ itoring, resources, mining, and recovery of uranium, in addition to thermodynamic calcula‐ tion. This book provides valuable insights into the related safety of nuclear reactor and breeding, utilization of plutonium, uranium-enriched plants, energy security of uranium re‐ sources, geochemistry of uranium rocks, physical and chemical properties of UF6, recovery of uranium by different techniques, thermodynamics and separation factor of uranium from fission products, uranium hydrolyses, uranium adsorption, complexation of uranium, and chemical thermodynamics of uranium in the soil environment.

> **Nasser S. Awwad, PhD** Professor of Inorganic and Radiochemistry King Khalid University Faculty of Science Chemistry Department Saudi Arabia

**Chapter 1**

**Provisional chapter**

**History of Uranium Mining in Central Europe**

**History of Uranium Mining in Central Europe**

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.71962

The Central European deposits were the first industrially mined uranium deposits in the world. Uranium minerals were noticed by miners in the Ore Mts. area (Saxony, Bohemia) for a long time prior the uranium discovery. The uranium mineral pitchblende was reported from this ore district as early as 1565. Pitchblende was firstly extracted for production of colouring agents used in the glassmaking industry. The German chemist Klaproth in 1789 detected uranium by analysing pitchblende. In 1896, A.H. Becquerel discovered the phenomenon of radioactivity. His student Marie Sklodowska-Curie recognized that pitchblende has higher radioactivity as pure uranium salts. Later, together with her husband P. Curie, they discovered two new elements: radium and polonium. Research by O. Hahn and its colleges led later to using of uranium as first nuclear weapons. The significant amount of uranium ores for producing of the Russian nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants in the former Eastern Bloc was mined in the East Germany (GDR) and Czechoslovakia. The total production of uranium ores in GDR from 1946 to 2012 was 219,626 t U. In Czechoslovakia, the total uranium production from 1945 to 2017

**Keywords:** pitchblende, uranium glass, radioactivity, radium, polonium, nuclear

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution,

© 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use,

distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

North and South Bohemia (Jizera Mts., Krkonoše, and Bohemian Forest).

The Central European uranium deposits were the first industrially mined deposits in the world. Uranium minerals were noticed by miners in the Ore Mts. area (Saxony, Bohemia) for a long time prior the discovery of uranium by Klaproth in 1789. The uranium mineral pitchblende was reported from this ore district as early as 1565. Pitchblende was firstly extracted for production of colouring agents used in the glassmaking industry. Uranium glass became very popular in the mid-nineteenth century. The important glassworks on this time exist in

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.71962

Miloš René

**Abstract**

was 112,250 t U.

energy

**1. Introduction**

Miloš René

**Provisional chapter**
