Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Uranium

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 03:45, 3 March 2007.

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Uranium

Self nom. Article significantly expanded, cited and several sections rewritten. See also: Wikipedia:Peer review/Uranium/archive1. This is my first FAC in a long time and the subject matter demanded a huge amount of work, so please bear with me as I try to fix any remaining issues. --mav 23:08, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

• Support as nominator. --mav 23:25, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
• Comment I skimmed through and it looked decent. The "See also" should probably be trimmed though. Per WP:LAYOUT, "it should ideally not repeat links already present in the article". I'll do a more in-depth run-through later. Gzkn 03:39, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • See also section cut down to size. Thanks for the feedback and I look forward to your more in-depth review! :) --mav 14:31, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Support Very well done! I do have a question on this sentence though: "The first major producer is as was Josef Riedel with his Bohemia glassworks in the 1830's." I think something went wrong with the "is as was". Also, this seems out of place in the ancient use section. Finally, is there a reason why this sentence uses the possessive plural for decades? Seems inconsistent with the rest of the article. But other than that, very nice work! Gzkn 03:07, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
      • Thanks! Sentence removed. It was redundant with a previous sentence and added by an anon who cited the fact with a link to a commercial website that sold uranium glass. --mav 19:14, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
• Support I reviewed this article a little while ago. It is informative, easy to follow (for an educated, non-specialist), well-written (if a little wordy at times) and well-referenced. I cannot comment on its comprehensiveness or accuracy. I will leave that to others more qualified than myself. Nice work. Awadewit 05:10, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks! Please tell me where it might be a bit wordy and I will try to tighten the prose. --mav 14:31, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Here are a few examples of the two major problems: unnecessary repetition of words and wordiness.

• Uranium is used as a colorant in Uranium glass, producing colors that range from orange-red to lemon yellow.
• Becquerel made the discovery in Paris by leaving a sample of uranium on top of an unexposed photographic plate in a drawer and noting that the plate had become 'fogged' as if it were partially exposed to light.
• Two major types of atomic bomb were developed in the Manhattan Project during World War II: a plutonium-based device (see Trinity test and 'Fat Man') whose plutonium was derived from the uranium-238 isotope, and a uranium-based device (nicknamed 'Little Boy') whose fissile material was a blend of uranium isotopes that were highly enriched in uranium-235. Awadewit 18:47, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Ah, I see and will take care of it soon. --mav 13:15, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Specific examples noted above have been shortened. A more complete copyedit soon to come that will look for other cases and fix those. Again, thanks for the feedback! --mav 19:24, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

• Support Nice article! But I have some comments. The statment that U3O8 is the most stable form depends strongly on the conditions. It would be good to mention that the fluorides were researched because of the enrichment process. (F has only one stable isotope). The nitride and carbides are sometimes used in experimental nuclear reactors. The fact that Francis Perrin discovered the Okla reactor is strange, because he is not mentioned in several publications.--Stone 08:32, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks! I will try to fix the issues you mention ASAP. --mav 14:31, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • U3O8 issue taken care of. Perrin mention comes from the attached inline cite to a .gov website, which in turns cites a Scientific American article. I would not mind mention of him deleted. I looked and could not find any good sources for the other two facts you mention. Could you point me toward a good source or two (even if it means I need to drive to my local uni's library) for those facts? Again, thanks! :) --mav 19:50, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
• Object Image:180px-Yellowcake.jpg has to be replacable fair use. Hipocrite - «Talk» 13:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment replaced by me - if my edit sticks, withdrawn.
    • Wow - I looked all over for a free version and couldn't find one. Great work! --mav 14:31, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
• Comment — Nice article. Here's a couple of points I'd like to see addressed:
  • The text has a sentence that reads: "Uranium is a naturally occurring element found in low levels and always combined with other elements within all rock, soil, and water." This is somewhat ambiguous to me. Does it mean that uranium is ubiquitous within all rock, soil and water?
  • The "natural concentrations" section briefly describes the decay process, but it leaves me hungry for more information. For example, what is an "18-member ... natural decay series"? Why is the production of the daughter product radon not mentioned here, as it is listed as a hazard elsewhere? Nor are strontium-90 and iodine-131 mentioned therein.

Thank you. — RJH (talk) 18:35, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

• • Great feedback - I will address your points by editing the article soon. --mav 13:15, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
  • First point made more clear in text. Second point sounds like an interesting expansion, but something I won't be able to get to until this weekend. --mav 19:55, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
• Comment Just a few points on the Production and reserves section.
  • Three million metric ton of uranium ore reserves are known to exist and an additional five billion metric ton of uranium are estimated to be in sea water

Both of these statistics need sources.

There would be more than 3Mt of uranium ore reserves – Olympic Dam alone has 761Mt @ 0.6kg/t U3O8. [1]

It would be more like 3Mt of mineable U3O8 is known to exist. I don’t think you’ll find a figure for straight uranium.

• • Consider changing metric ton to just tonne through out the article. Ton is used for imperial units throughout the article and it would be more readable for metric users to see ‘tonne’.
  • Yellowcake is then generally further refined using nitric acid to create a solution of uranyl nitrate.

For this general discussion the step to uranyl nitrate can be skipped and mention of uranium hexafluoride should be mentioned instead.

• • I don’t think the picture comment ‘to extract pure uranium’ is what is generally done. Uranium is mainly used as Uranium dioxide in nuclear reactors. Also 'yellowcake' is not generally the colour in the picture anymore (see below and yellowcake). I do appreciate that there are few pictures out there but maybe you could change the comment to reflect that this is an historic picture of yellowcake.
  • “The resulting mixture, called yellowcake, contains..”. It would be more correct to use “the resulting mixture is U3O8 and is commonly called yellowcake…” The powdered form is not yellow [2], Australia’s second largest producer doesn’t use the term yellowcake [3], their largest producer uses it only once [4], and the worlds largest producer uses the term U3O8 [5] more than yellowcake [6].

And Uranium mining makes no mention of yellowcake. I guess my point on this one is that general public usage is 'yellowcake' however the mining companies that produce the oxide (where you can go for more info) use U3O8. The section also uses yellowcake and ‘concentrated uranium oxides’ interchangeably when they are describing the same thing - it could be confusing.

Thanks Ctbolt 12:01, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment - some further comments:
  • in reference to the Cold War legacy and waste section, it would be useful to have a sentence on the use of dismantled nuclear warheads for nuclear fuel for power stations. [7] Megatons to Megawatts Program
  • for the Biotic and abiotic section:
    • Do we need the sub heading ‘Biotic and abiotic’. If so can we mention in the next paragraph which one it is or link to the words some how? I didn’t know what they were – more encompassing words for organic and inorganic? I’ve only checked lead and potassium and there is no similar sub headings. Can we remove?
    • In reference to Its average concentration in the Earth's crust is (depending on the reference) 2 to 4 parts per million do those references really say Earth’s crust. Most reference on the net have ‘Uranium occurs in rocks in concentrations of 2 to 4 ppm’ [8]. If it says rocks in the reference can we change it to the previous sentence. If it is crust then a number closer to 4 maybe correct. crust is made up mainly of basalt (0.5ppm) and granite (4ppm) [9] [10], 4ppm could be reasonable as basalt is more associated with the earths surface. The 2ppm most likely is a reference to Uranium in soils. Greater than 2.5ppm is ‘high uranium concentrations’ [11]. US studies indicate that fertilised soils have 0.8 to 1.2ppm [12] and [13]. And I like the quality [14] of sites when I run 2ppm [15] in google compared to 4ppm [16] when looking at soils. So can we remove ‘depending on the reference’ and match the correct words with the correct numbers.
    • (it is recovered commercially from these sources with as little as 0.1% uranium[9]). This should be with less than 0.1% uranium. Olympic Dam is mining at 0.6kg/t (0.06%) of U3O8 and if uranium makes up 81% of this compound by weight then they are mining at about 0.05% uranium. This is due to the uranium being a by product (although these days it’s more a co-product) but the life of Olympic Dam will make this statement correct for as long as most of us are alive.

Thanks - Ctbolt 01:57, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.