/r/thorium
The Thorium Reddit
Description: A reddit dedicated to articles and posts relating to thorium. Civil discussions and submissions aren't just welcome they're wanted with intention of farther expanding our understanding of this oft-ignored element.
The Thorium Reddit
Thorium - a naturally occurring radioactive chemical element with the symbol Th and atomic number 90. It was discovered in 1828 by the Norwegian mineralogist Morten Thrane Esmark and identified by the Swedish chemist Jöns Jakob Berzelius and named after Thor, the Norse god of thunder.
Thorium produces a radioactive gas, radon-220, as one of its decay products. Secondary decay products of thorium include radium and actinium. In nature, virtually all thorium is found as thorium-232, which undergoes alpha decay with a half-life of about 14.05 billion years. Other isotopes of thorium are short-lived intermediates in the decay chains of higher elements, and only found in trace amounts. Thorium is estimated to be about three to four times more abundant than uranium in the Earth's crust, and is chiefly refined from monazite sands as a by-product of extracting rare earth metals.
Wikipedia: Thorium
LiveScience: Facts About Thorium
Symbol: Th
Atomic number: 90
Atomic mass: 232.03806 u ± 0.00002 u
Electron configuration: [Rn] 6d27s2
Discovered: 1828 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius
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/r/thorium
Chapter 10: The Rare Earth's Thorium Link
How Rare Earths are often discarded as radioactive waste and how the Thorium contained within could provide clean safe and cheap nuclear power
Currently the EPA requires that Thorium (often found in association with rare earth minerals) must be handled in a "...a very specific and costly way...".... causing rare earth mining in the United States to be "prohibitively expensive." .... however, both the environmental and economic problems associated with rare earth mining and processing in the US might be solved ...(by Thorium extraction and utilization) because Thorium can be used in a special type of nuclear reactor which has been shown to be proliferation resistant and safer than the High Pressure Water Reactors which are based on Uranium.
While there are currently no operating Thorium reactors, in the 1960s there was a Thorium fed Liquid Fluoride Salt Reactor at Oakridge National Laboratory that operated without incident for years until it was shut down by Congress in favor of fast breeder reactors.
Extraordinaire documentaire : La face "GÂCHÉE" du nucléaire❗
PAD(TM) is here! Our inhouse R&D team has been hard at work during recent times and we've great news to share. We've cracked the Atom! Rather, cracked the monazite apatite structure that tightly bind Rare Earths - and Thorium - together.
We call it Plasma Assisted Digestion(TM) or PAD(TM) for short.
Here's a brief of the process:
Mineral sand with a zircon, monazite, rutile composition of 20%:60%:20% were treated in a 9 kW inflight plasma.
We achieved >90% dissociation with a very low energy per kg input - lower than any comparable method.
Physical tests showed a new affinity for magnetic separation.
QemScan analysis shows high levels of dissociation in the particles.
Chemical tests showed a significant increase in neodymium extraction - in under 5 minutes.
Reduced lanthanum, cerium, Thorium and uranium extraction was attained.
A financial model shows that using the proposed mix with a minimum feed rate of 500 kg/h is sufficient to make the process financially viable.
We are excited to announce the launch of our new project!
And Pertract(TM) is coming too!
The combination is a unbeatable solution to rapid, low cost and environmentally friendly production of Rare Earths.
Thorium (and uranium) is removed early in the process thus enabling a two step/ dual location processing, to maximise final end product values.
Stay tuned.
Reach out to us at PAD-Pertract@TheThoriumNetwork.com to find out more.
Thank you Dian Kemp, Ph.D. We are excited to announce the launch of our new project!
From The Expo On Thorium last year