The Paducah Depleted Uranium Hexafluoride project team has marked a milestone by successfully fabricating valves from old equipment and installing them on 137 specialized cylinders.
Office of Environmental Management
May 27, 2025
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Workers at the Paducah Depleted Uranium Hexafluoride plant install valve replacements for the specialized cylinders.
PADUCAH, Ky. — The Paducah Depleted Uranium Hexafluoride (DUF6) project team has marked a milestone by successfully fabricating valves from old equipment and installing them on 137 specialized cylinders, enabling crews in the future to transform the DUF6 stored inside them into depleted uranium oxide, a stable chemical form suitable for reuse, storage or disposal.
The valves are essential for feeding the DUF6 material into the conversion system, which also produces the coproduct hydrofluoric acid, which is reused industrially.
“These 137 cylinders represent an innovative solution to reuse former gaseous diffusion plant equipment from decades ago to containerize DUF6 material,” Portsmouth Paducah Project Office (PPPO) DUF6 Program Manager Zak Lafontaine said. “Their unique size and configuration presented a significant challenge to the Mid-America Conversion Services team, and I am pleased we have safely completed the first phase of this endeavor.”
Mid-America Conversion Services is the PPPO DUF6 contractor.
The specialized cylinders stand in a cylinder yard at the Paducah Site. They are the largest depleted uranium hexafluoride cylinders by volume in the site’s inventory, with a full cylinder weighing approximately 39,000 pounds.
Historically, DUF6 was containerized during the enrichment process as tails, which are large quantities of depleted uranium. It has been stored in cylinders of various types over the years.
In the latest milestone, workers removed the cylinder plugs and carefully attached the valves, which were fabricated from obsolete converter components from the gaseous diffusion plant. This meticulous work was performed outdoors and required rigorous safety protocols due to the inherent risks associated with handling cylinders with unknown pressure conditions.
The 137 specialized cylinders, known as Cylinder Valve-19 cylinders, are the largest DUF6 cylinders by volume in the Paducah Site inventory, with a full cylinder weighing approximately 39,000 pounds. The DUF6 Conversion Project operates facilities at the PPPO sites of Paducah in Kentucky and Portsmouth in Ohio.
Paducah DUF6 Plant Manager Rob Gentry said completing the valve installations on the specialized cylinders is an achievement that underscores the team's commitment to environmental stewardship and operational excellence.
"We are proud of the dedication and teamwork demonstrated by the production support and environment safety health groups during this complex project," Gentry said. "Their commitment to safety and compliance was instrumental in completing this important work on time and without incident."
The Paducah and Portsmouth plants will now proceed with the next phase: installing a DUF6 evacuation vacuum header. This work allows for a more efficient and flexible means to process the DUF6 material. The specialized cylinders don’t fit in the project’s autoclave used for heating, so workers will transfer the DUF6 material from the specialized cylinders to standard cylinders so the material can be processed in the autoclave. A full standard cylinder weighs about 32,700 pounds.
The DUF6 project draws from innovative methods and technologies to manage and convert DUF6 into usable materials, ensuring compliance with all safety and environmental regulations. PPPO conducts operations of the DUF6 conversion plants as required by Public Law 107-206.
-Contributor: Kearney Canter
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