Humanity is missing, luckily I have billions of clones.

Chapter 82 Separation and Purification

The production of atomic bombs requires uranium or plutonium. After comprehensively exploring the mineral reserves on Luoshen and Enemy Star, Li Qingsong finally decided to use uranium for his first attempt at nuclear energy.

The solar system was formed about 50 billion years ago. All the matter that makes up the solar system came from a nebula formed 50 billion years ago, probably due to a supernova explosion.

A supernova explosion is the most violent physical event in the universe. During this process, due to the extremely powerful energy, all elements after iron, including uranium and plutonium, are generated and then thrown into interstellar space.

During the long evolution of the solar system, these uranium elements were randomly dispersed throughout the solar system.

There are on Earth, on Mercury and Mars, and also on dwarf planets like Roselle at the edge of the solar system.

It was most likely formed in the inner solar system, but only later broke away and has an orbit so far away from the sun.

After large-scale exploration, Li Qingsong did find uranium mines on Luoshen.

Not just one, but four.

but……

Li Qingsong still couldn't help but smile bitterly.

"Although there are four, these uranium mines are too poor... The one with the highest uranium content only has an average uranium content of a few grams per ton."

He vaguely remembered a piece of data, that is, among the uranium mines explored by people on the earth, even the relatively poor ones, one ton of ore would contain at least 100 grams of uranium.

As a result, the richest mine on Luoshen is not even as rich as the poorest mine on Earth.

But there is no way, Luoshen is too small, there is no hot core, no magma flow, and no groundwater flow.

Without this enrichment method, it is normal for the mineral veins to be barren.

Sighing, Li Qingsong finally chose the uranium vein that was the richest in comparison.

According to the plan, a large factory was quickly built near the uranium mine.

A large amount of mining equipment arrived, and soon many ores that were buried more than a hundred meters underground and could only be mined by digging wells were dug out and then sent to the factory for processing.

The ores are first crushed and then ground directly into powder.

Because the amount of ore that needs to be processed is very large, the crushing and grinding process also requires a large amount of equipment and a huge amount of electricity.

There was no other way, Li Qingsong could only build a power plant near the factory to supply its electricity consumption.

In addition, Li Qingsong also built a chemical plant specifically to supply acidic solutions.

After being ground into powder, the uranium ore powder is soaked in an acidic solution for further processing.

Because of the large amount of uranium ore powder, a large amount of acid solution is required. Fortunately, there is a specially built chemical plant that can provide it.

After soaking, the uranium oxide, the famous yellow cake, is extracted through solvent extraction technology.

Looking at the pale yellow pancake in front of him, Li Qingsong thought to himself, "I've only seen it in movies and TV shows before, but now I'm seeing the real thing."

This thing also has radioactivity, although the level is not high. But to be on the safe side, Li Qingsong still asked the clones to wear anti-radiation clothing.

Making yellowcake is only the first step in enriching uranium.

There is still a lot to do next.

Yellowcake undergoes some chemical treatment and is converted into uranium hexafluoride.

Uranium hexafluoride is a gas. At this point, the most important step in the uranium enrichment process can begin. Uranium exists in two isotopes: uranium-235 and uranium-238. Both nuclear power plants and atomic bombs can only use uranium-235, not uranium-238.

But in natural uranium, the content of uranium-235 is only about 0.8%, and the remaining 99.2% is uranium-238.

But these two have almost the same mass and chemical properties, so how can they be separated?

This is a difficult problem that has troubled humanity for a long time in human history.

But it doesn’t matter. Although Li Qingsong has never been exposed to the process of uranium enrichment before, he roughly knows the basic principles.

It's nothing more than a centrifuge.

Uranium 235 is about 238% lighter than uranium 1. This slight difference also exists when combined with fluorine to form uranium hexafluoride gas.

If that's the case, it's easy to handle.

Li Qingsong built another power plant to provide electricity to another factory.

In this factory, Li Qingsong manufactured tens of thousands of giant cans. The cans were divided into two layers: the outer shell and the inner centrifuge, which could spin at high speeds, similar to the drum in a washing machine.

The uranium hexafluoride gas produced from the previous plant is transported through a pipeline to the first centrifuge in the centrifuge factory.

Under the surge of electricity, the centrifuge began to spin at high speed. As a result, the heavier uranium hexafluoride gas, composed of uranium-238 and fluorine, was thrown to the walls by the enormous centrifugal force, while the lighter uranium hexafluoride gas, composed of uranium-235, was concentrated in the center of the centrifuge, farthest from the walls.

But this is far from enough.

The difference in quality between the two is so small that the separation at this moment is far from pure enough.

The lighter uranium hexafluoride located at the wall of the cylinder was then pumped out and poured into the second centrifuge.

The second centrifuge also began to spin at high speed, completing the separation of the two gases again. Afterwards, the uranium hexafluoride at the center was again extracted and poured into the third centrifuge...

With each centrifuge, the concentration of uranium-235 increases a little.

Li Qingsong has built more than 10,000 such centrifuges in this factory!
More than 10,000 centrifuges spinning at high speed day and night consume an extremely terrifying amount of electricity, which is even more than that of a supercomputing base.

These centrifuges are divided into four production lines, each of which has about 2600 centrifuges. Therefore, after 2600 centrifuges and 2600 enrichments, the concentration of uranium hexafluoride gas is finally raised to a level that meets the requirements.

At this time, uranium hexafluoride gas can finally be converted into metallic uranium and become a qualified raw material for an atomic bomb.

But that alone is not enough.

If relying solely on naturally occurring chain reactions, an atomic bomb would probably require dozens of kilograms of uranium, and its power would be relatively small, with most of the uranium being wasted.

An explosive device must be designed.

The design of this explosive device is quite complicated, involving a great many complex calculations, such as nuclear cross-section data, equation of state, implosion dynamics, focusing and symmetry of shock waves, explosion lens design, and so on.

But these complicated calculations were not difficult for Li Qingsong.

Because Li Qingsong has a supercomputer! Moreover, it is a supercomputer that is much more advanced than that of the same period in human history!

After conducting dozens of pre-detonation experiments and obtaining sufficient parameters, the supercomputer calculated the corresponding data in just less than a day.

Thus, a huge bomb with a total mass of 3.6 tons and a length of more than three meters was finally built.

(End of this chapter)