Depleted uranium ammunition: environmental and health consequences

Chemistry - Depleted Uranium

Uranium is a natural element that occurs in three different isotopes (U234, U235, and U238) in nature. All three are radioactive with half-lives billions of years long and all three are toxic to biological life. Only U235 is capable of undergoing nuclear fission, which makes it extremely valuable both for industrial applications such as nuclear power production in civilian nuclear reactors and for use in nuclear weapons production. Only a very small percentage of naturally occurring Uranium is U235 (significantly less than 1.0%), so it must be extracted through complex mechanisms to yield higher percentages for use in nuclear power production and in fissionable nuclear weapons. It is also produced artificially, as a byproduct of reprocessing the spent nuclear cores of nuclear reactors.

After extraction of U235, the left-over U234 and U238 are considered "depleted

Uranium" which, because it is very dense and produces very high temperatures on explosive combustion, is used extensively for manufacture into ammunition, especially in fighter/ground attack aircraft like the Fairchild Republic a-10 Thunderbolt "tank killer."

Because depleted Uranium is a toxic metal, it remains dangerous to the environment and its inhabitants long after the cessation of hostilities in which it is used. Furthermore, on combustion, depleted Uranium also aerosolizes releasing particles sufficiently small to be inhaled into the lungs where it represents a deadly medical threat. Likewise, it is also capable of contaminating food crops and water where it is ingested with similarly devastating medical consequences.