Ames process
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The Ames process is a process by which pure uranium metal is obtained. It can be achieved by mixing any of the uranium halides with magnesium metal powder or aluminium metal powder.
A "bomb" (pressure vessel) containing uranium halide and sacrificial metal, probably magnesium, being lowered into a furnace
After the reaction, remnant slag coats the interior of a bomb.
A uranium metal "biscuit" from the reduction reaction
Frank Spedding
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Frank Harold Spedding was a Canadian-American chemist. He was a renowned expert on rare earth elements, and on extraction of metals from minerals. The uranium extraction process helped make it possibl
Ames process
…uranium tetrafluoride) with magnesium metal powder or aluminium metal powder. The Ames process was used on August 3, 1942, by a group of chemists led by Frank Spedding and Harley Wilhelm at the Ames Laboratory as part of the Manhattan Project. It is a type of thermite-based purification, which was patented in 1895 by…
Spedding in 1946
Spedding (third from right) poses with colleagues in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 1946