THE BEGINNINGS OF URANIUM PRODUCTION IN ESTONIA
2003; Estonian Academy Publishers; Volume: 20; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.3176/oil.2003.2.08
ISSN1736-7492
Autores Tópico(s)Coal and Coke Industries Research
ResumoLarge amounts of uranium available in the Estonian black alum (Dictyonema) shale created intense interest towards this low-grade ore in the very beginning of the atomic era.Various selective leaching and concentration technologies were tried with both roasted and native shale, at first at the Narva Pilot Plant and thereafter at the Sillamäe factory.Even though most of the USSR leading R&D centers participated in this effort, industrial uranium production turned out to be both technologically possible, but at the same time economically untenable at this time, just as it was the case in Sweden.Black alum (Dictyonema) shale is abundant in Estonia.This Ordovician deposit formed long ago when oceans were rich in heavy elements and the Baltoscandian plate was located halfway between Equator and the South pole.Estonian black shale contains only about 250 ppm of uranium, but the seams are up to 8 meters thick and the total amount of uranium is significant, more than a million tons.It is thus not surprising that the first demonstration batch of Estonian uranium was produced in great hurry during the 1944/45 winter and active uranium prospecting by the Estonian Central Institute of Industrial Research began.Two top-secret decrees were issued by the USSR Council of Ministers.The decree No. 0282 cc of August 6, 1946 established a mining-industrial complex at Sillamäe for processing the Estonian alum shale, and a small uranium production research and pilot plant was set up in Narva, codenamed "Dyeing Factory", which had a broader reach, including experiments with other ores as these became available.For this the decree of July 27, 1946 ordered twelve well-known research institutions of the Soviet Union to carry out research on shale in the following areas:• Chemical composition:
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