China's uranium enrichment plant first publicly developed "centrifuge"

“The Lanzhou Uranium Enrichment Base was opened to the media for the first time. Concentrated nuclear fuel extracted from this site was reprocessed and transported to various nuclear power plants in China. The base once provided nuclear fuel to China’s atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs, nuclear submarines, and Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant, the first nuclear power plant.”

China National Nuclear Corporation announced a few days ago that China’s independent uranium enrichment technology has been successfully used for industrialization, and it has for the first time opened its uranium enrichment base in Lanzhou to the media.

Surrounded by mountains, the huge factory buildings are hidden. The fuel uranium needed for nuclear power plants is produced here. The enriched nuclear fuel extracted from the production facilities here will be reprocessed and will be continuously transported to various nuclear power plants.

"Centrifuge" is a core secret

According to reports, centrifuges are the core production equipment for uranium enrichment, and they are also the core secrets strictly controlled by countries. The reporter could not take a picture of the centrifuge working area. According to the staff, all the devices including the centrifuge were independently developed by China.

Internationally, it is usually regarded whether uranium enrichment technology is one of the criteria for judging whether or not a country is conducting nuclear tests. The key equipment for uranium enrichment, centrifugal separator manufacturing technology, is classified as a core secret. Liu Zhonghua, director of science and technology at the China Nuclear Power Group, pointed out that for a long time China's uranium enrichment is based on backward diffusion separation technology. The main reason is that the technology of centrifuges is extremely complex, and the one-minute speed is even higher than that of aero engines.

A "clustered" job

"Turn tens of thousands to more than 100,000 rpm has put very high demands on the material's strength limit. The centrifuge's working medium is gaseous uranium hexafluoride, which has very strong corrosive properties and requires corrosion resistance for the material structure. Very high.It is not a machine work, it is a cluster work, the machine's consistency requirements are very high, and the requirements for the batch processing manufacturing process and assembly technology are also very high."

"Centrifuge" developed by China

After years of hard work, CNNC researchers have overcome many technical difficulties in the development of centrifuges, completed the task of developing centrifuges, and realized the industrial application of centrifuges, resulting in greatly reduced production costs for uranium enrichment. Ray Zengguang, chief engineer of China National Nuclear Corporation, said: "Its power consumption is equivalent to about one-fifth of the diffusion law, and the overall cost will be reduced by more than 50%."

Lei Zengguang said that the complete independence of uranium enrichment technology is of great strategic significance for safeguarding national energy security and the sustainable development of China’s nuclear power: “The installed capacity of nuclear power is now 12 million kilowatts. By 2020, according to the national nuclear power development plan, our country To achieve 58 million kilowatts. If we want to meet the power generation, we will have to keep up with our capabilities by 2020."