Abstract: Nozzle cooling and wall contact prevention control are included in a gaseous CRISLA apparatus, along with removable collectors, and the efficient use of one or more currently available high power lasers to produce a commercially economic isotope separation process. The wall contact prevention is accomplished with gaseous boundary layers, and a supersonic nozzle normally is used to cool and separate excitation bands of the isotopic material. Non-intermixing gaseous streams with different isotopic assays can be created in a single nozzle chamber and segmented collection chamber, which along with recirculation loops and compressors, allows a single laser system and a single nozzle system to be used to selectively excite the isotopic material while it makes multiple passes through the laser beams of the laser system until only a small fraction of the desired isotope remains to be separated. The process is especially effective in separating .sup.235 UF.sub.6 from a gaseous mixture of .sup.235 UF.sub.6 and .sup.

Abstract: Uranium fluoride compounds, in which the uranium is preferably present in the tetravalent or higher valency state, are reacted with a strong mineral acid, to yield a gaseous phase of hydrogen fluoride and a precipitate that is a uranium salt of the mineral acid. The precipitate can be subjected to thermal decomposition to recover the mineral acid and to obtain an oxide of uranium. The process provides an economical way of obtaining hydrogen fluoride from byproduct depleted UF.sub.6.

Abstract: Nozzle cooling and wall contact prevention control are included in a gaseous CRISLA apparatus, along with removable collectors, and the efficient use of one or more currently available high power lasers to produce a commercially economic isotope separation process. The wall contact prevention is accomplished with gaseous boundary layers, and a supersonic nozzle normally is used to cool and separate excitation bands of the isotopic material. Non-intermixing gaseous streams with different isotopic assays can be created in a single nozzle chamber and segmented collection chamber, which along with recirculation loops and compressors, allows a single laser system and a single nozzle system to be used to selectively excite the isotopic material while it makes multiple passes through the laser beams of the laser system until only a small fraction of the desired isotope remains to be separated. The process is especially effective in separating .sup.235 UF.sub.6 from a gaseous mixture of .sup.235 UF.sub.6 and .sup.

Abstract: A compound MF.sub.n, where M is a metal and n is the valency of the metal and has a value between 1 and 6, is subjected to a thermal plasma at a temperature in excess of 3000 K to dissociate it into the metal and fluorine. Also present in the reactor is an added reactant that will react with the metal or the fluorine to prevent their recombination so that there is formed fluorine gas or a fluoride other than the fluoride of the metal M.