Uranyl sulfate a sulfate

Sulfate

In inorganic chemistry, a sulfate is a salt of sulfuric acid.-Chemical properties:...

 of uranium

Uranium

Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons...

 is an odorless lemon-yellow sand-like solid in its pure crystalline form.

It has found use as a negative stain

Negative stain

Negative staining is an established method, often used in diagnostic microscopy, for contrasting a thin specimen with an optically opaque fluid....

 in microscopy

Microscopy

Microscopy is the technical field of using microscopes to view samples and objects that cannot be seen with the unaided eye...

 and tracer

Tracer

Tracer may refer to:* Histochemical tracer, a substance used for tracing purposes in histochemistry, the study of the composition of cells and tissues...

 in biology

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

. The Aqueous Homogeneous Reactor

Aqueous homogeneous reactor

Aqueous homogeneous reactors are a type of nuclear reactor in which soluble nuclear salts have been dissolved in water. The fuel is mixed with the coolant and the moderator, thus the name "homogeneous" The water can be either heavy water or light water, both which need to be very pure...

 experiment, constructed in 1951, circulated a fuel composed of 565 grams of U-235

Uranium-235

- References :* .* DOE Fundamentals handbook: Nuclear Physics and Reactor theory , .* A piece of U-235 the size of a grain of rice can produce energy equal to that contained in three tons of coal or fourteen barrels of oil. -External links:* * * one of the earliest articles on U-235 for the...

 enriched

Enriched uranium

Enriched uranium is a kind of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 has been increased through the process of isotope separation. Natural uranium is 99.284% 238U isotope, with 235U only constituting about 0.711% of its weight...

 to 14.7% in the form of uranyl sulfate.

The acid

Acid

An acid is a substance which reacts with a base. Commonly, acids can be identified as tasting sour, reacting with metals such as calcium, and bases like sodium carbonate. Aqueous acids have a pH of less than 7, where an acid of lower pH is typically stronger, and turn blue litmus paper red...

 process of milling uranium ores involves precipitating uranyl sulfate from the pregnant leaching

Leaching (chemical science)

Leaching is the process of extracting minerals from a solid by dissolving them in a liquid, either in nature or through an industrial process. In the chemical processing industry, leaching has a variety of commercial applications, including separation of metal from ore using acid, and sugar from...

 solution to produce the semi-refined product referred to as yellowcake

Yellowcake

Yellowcake is a kind of uranium concentrate powder obtained from leach solutions, in an intermediate step in the processing of uranium ores. Yellowcake concentrates are prepared by various extraction and refining methods, depending on the types of ores...

.

Radioactivity was discovered using uranyl double sulfate, K₂UO₂(SO₄)₂.