VACUUM ARC PLASMA CENTRIFUGE FOR ELEMENT AND ISOTOPE SEPARATION.

M. Geva*, C. Cohen, O. Danziger, F. Dothan, L. Friedland, S. Maharshak, J. L. Hirshfield

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

Abstract

Reliable generation of fully ionized, regularly rotating plasma columns of Cu, Cu-Ni, Cu-Zn and others, has been demonstrated. The plasma was produced by 6-12-ms, 1-4-kA constant current pulses of vacuum arc in a constant magnetic field of up to 5 kG. The radial plasma density roughly followed a Gaussian profile, with 10**1 **4 cm** minus **3 peak density. The radial electric field in the column was shown to point inward and grow linearly with the radius, indicating the rotation to be mainly due to the E multiplied by B drift. Centrifugal mass enrichment of up to 300% was produced in a Cu-Zn plasma. An improved multispecies, multi-ionization states theoretical model was developed, which calculates the individual radial density profiles for the various ion species in a steady-state equilibrium plasma centrifuge.

Original languageEnglish
Pages172-177
Number of pages6
StatePublished - 1986

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