Uranium centrifuges have triggered war between Israel and Iran. Without them it is impossible to have the atomic bomb

Uranium centrifugers monopolize a good part of global attention since it began The last episode of the conflict between Israel and Iran on June 13. The government led by Benjamín Netanyahu has set as a fundamental objective dismantle the Iranian nuclear program that presumably seeks to develop the necessary technology to Manufacture atomic bombs. And to achieve it Israel and the US have bombarded The facilities in which Iran was carrying out the enrichment of uranium, such as the plants of Fordo, Isfahán and Natanz.

According to Israel and the US, these Iranian nuclear facilities housed several hundred uranium centrifugers. It can even that several thousand of these machines. Its role in the nuclear program not only of Iran, but in that of any country with the ability to manufacture nuclear weapons, is to enrich 90%uranium. Otherwise it is not possible to use it to produce atomic fission pumps o Thermonuclear devices that combine fission and nuclear fusion. However, in these last pumps uranium is only used in the fission stage, which acts as a detonator of the nuclear fusion. In this last reaction two isotopes of hydrogen intervene: the deuterium and the tritium.

Uranium-235 is the true protagonist of this story

To precisely understand what is the purpose of uranium centrifuges it is necessary that we previously investigate in two isotopes of this chemical element Metallic, heavy and radioactive. Uranium is present in nature in very low concentrations, normally in rocks, land and water. Hence, its obtaining is expensive and its complex treatment, since it requires chemical processes capable of separating it from the other elements and impurities with which it usually lives. It has 92 protons and many other electrons orbiting around the nucleus, and the latter incorporates, in addition to the protons, between 142 and 146 neutrons.

It is important that we remember that the nucleus of an atom is usually constituted by a certain number of protons and neutrons (although not always: the protio, the isotope of the most abundant hydrogen, has a single proton and no neutron in its nucleus), as well as by some electrons that orbit around it. The fact that the number of neutrons of the uranium nucleus may varyas we have just seen, it indicates that there are several isotopes of this chemical element, which are nothing other than atoms with the same number of protons and electrons, but different number of neutrons.

The reason why in the fission reactors and nuclear weapons is used as an uranium-235 fuel, and not another isotope of this element or any other chemical element, it consists that by bombarding its nucleus with a neutron (a process that is known as induced fission) the uranium-235 is transformed into uranium-236, which is a more unstable element. This simply means that Uranium-236 cannot remain long in its current state, so it is divided into two nuclei, one from Bario-144 and another of Crypton-89, and also emits two or three neutrons.

And here comes the really interesting: the sum of the masses of the Bario-144 and Crypton-89 nuclei is slightly lower than the Uranium-236 nucleus from which they come (“disappears” around 0.1% of the original mass). Where has the mass we lack? Only one can be left: has been transformed into energy. Formula e = m c²probably the most popular in the history of physics, relates mass and energy, and what it says is simply that a certain amount of mass equals a specific amount of energy, even if the dough is at rest.

In fact, the equivalence between mass and energy, proposed by Albert Einstein In 1905, he tells us something more important. The C of the formula represents the speed of light in a vacuum, which, as we all intuit, is a very large number (299,792,458 m/s). In addition, it is squared, which means that even a very, very small mass, such as the portion of the nucleus of an atom, although it is at rest contains a large amount of energy. This is what we know as resting energy.

If the mass is in motion its total energy is greater than its resting energy. And, if we observe the equivalence between mass and energy, it is easy to realize that the mass of a body in motion too is greater than its resting massa phenomenon that It introduces us fully into relativistic physics. In any case, the energy we obtain by merging or fissting atomic nuclei comes from the force that keeps them together: Strong nuclear interaction.

Understanding with some precision the relationship between mass and energy is important because it helps us understand how it is possible that a mass as small as that of an atom allows us to obtain such a large amount of energy. In any case, the nuclear fission process does not end here. And it is that each of the neutrons that we have obtained as a result of the disintegration of the Uranium-236 nucleus in the Bario-144 and Crypton-89 nuclei can interact with other physically nuclei, causing a chain reaction.

However, not all neutrons emitted during the disintegration of the Uranium-236 nucleus will interact with a physirable nucleus. But they don’t need to do it all. It is enough that only one of those neutrons achieves it to obtain a stable number of fissures, and, therefore, a controlled reaction, which is the objective of the reactors of the nuclear power plants.

Centrifugators serve to increase uranium-235 concentration

The most abundant uranium isotope in nature is uranium-238. In fact, it represents approximately 99.3% of the total uranium. The problem is that this isotope is not physically. The uranium enrichment process seeks to increase the proportion of uranium-235, which, as we have seen, is physically, within the total mass of uranium. However, this last isotope is very scarce in nature. So much that only represents 0.7% of natural uranium. The nuclear reactors of the power plants require that the uranium used as fuel has been enriched between 3 and 5% maximum.

This means that at most only 5% of the total mass of uranium is the Uranium-235 isotope (which as we have seen is the “easily” fistable), while the rest is mostly Uranium-238. It may seem that there is very little uranium-235 in front of the total mass of uranium, but in reality this amount is sufficient to Hold the nuclear fission reaction. However, to manufacture an atomic bomb, it is essential to enrich uranium until reaching 90%, so that 90% of the total mass is Uranium-235. This is precisely what the centrifugators do.

These machines have a cylindrical carbon fiber rotor or a titanium alloy that is capable of turning at a speed between 50,000 and 70,000 revolutions per minute. As we have seen, the Uranium-238 has more neutrons in the nucleus than the Uranium-235, so its mass is greater. By introducing natural uranium into the centrifuging rotor and turning the heaviest isotope, the uranium-238, moves to the outside, and the lightest isotope, the uranium-235, is stored near the rotor axis. This is ultimately what the centrifugators do: separate the Uranium-238 from the Uranium-235.

However, there is something else that we are interested in knowing. Only gases can be separated in an effective way by centrifugation, so it is necessary to introduce uranium into the rotor in the form of uranium hexafluoruro (UF₆), which is a gas. Once the rotor has revolved and the separation of the two isotopes in gaseous state has been extracted, they are extracted from the machine, but, in reality, This just started. Each centrifuger only separates a small portion of Uranium-235, so it is necessary to connect hundreds, or even thousands of these waterfall machines to obtain the amount of uranium-235 necessary to be able to manufacture nuclear weapons.

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