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Uranyl nitrate is an inorganic salt with the formula UO2(NO3)2. It is highly soluble in water and is often marketed as its hexahydrate1 or in solution. As the hazard information table shows, it is an extremely hazardous substance.
Uranyl nitrate appeared early in the chemical literature in an 1890 article by Czech chemist Jaroslav Form谩nek, who wrote about 2 and some of its double salts. Five years later, Fanny R. M. Hitchcock at the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia) extensively described , including uranyl salts.3
Several applications of uranyl nitrate include precursor to uranium glazes in pottery and tiles, reagent in analytical chemistry, stain for microscopy, and photography intensifier (now obsolete). But its primary use is in nuclear fuel reprocessing, in which spent uranium fuel is dissolved in nitric acid to form uranyl nitrate, which is extracted into tributyl phosphate4. It is then converted to uranium hexafluoride5 and eventually to enriched uranium.
1. CAS Reg. No. 13520-83-7.
2. CAS Reg. No. 794448-03-6.
3. The article was based on Hitchcock鈥檚 PhD thesis.
4. CAS Reg. No. 126-73-8.
5. CAS Reg. No. 7783-81-5
Uranyl nitrate hazard information*
| Hazard class** | GHS code and hazard statement | |
|---|---|---|
| Oxidizing solids, category 2 | H272鈥擬ay intensify fire; oxidizer |  |
| Acute toxicity, oral, category 1 | H300鈥擣atal if swallowed |  |
Acute toxicity, dermal, category 5 | H313鈥擬ay be harmful in contact with skin | |
Skin corrosion/irritation, category 3 | H316鈥擟auses mild skin irritation | |
| Serious eye damage/eye irritation, category 2A | H319鈥擟auses serious eye irritation |  |
| Acute toxicity, inhalation, category 1 | H330鈥擣atal if inhaled | |
| Germ cell mutagenicity, category 2 | H341鈥擲uspected of causing genetic defects |  |
| Carcinogenicity, category 1A | H350鈥擬ay cause cancer | |
| Specific target organ toxicity, single exposure, category 1 | H370鈥擟auses damage to organs | |
| Specific target organ toxicity, repeated exposure, category 1 | H372鈥擟auses damage to organs through prolonged or repeated exposure | |
| Long-term (chronic) aquatic hazard, category, category 2 | H411鈥擳oxic to aquatic life with long lasting effects. |  |
*Compilation of multiple safety data sheets.
**Globally Harmonized System (GHS) of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals.听.
MOTW updates
Coumarin1 was the Molecule of the Week for December 14, 2009. It is a natural product found in plants such as lavender oil and sweet clover. Its uses range from perfumes to rodenticides.
Earlier this month, Margaret Sunde, Elizabeth J. New, Amandeep Kaur, and collaborators at the University of Sydney and Monash University (Melbourne, both in Australia) reported a use for coumarin in . They developed a fluorescent coumarin-based two-sensor array that can correctly discriminate among four different amyloids implicated in amyloid-related pathologies with 100% classification. They also applied the array to mouse models of Alzheimer鈥檚 disease and found that it could discriminate between samples from mice corresponding to early (6-month) and advanced (12-month) stages of Alzheimer鈥檚 disease.
4-Vinylanisole2 (4VA. aka 4-methoxystyrene) was the Molecule of the Week for November 2, 2020. It is an aroma compound particularly known as a volatile component of a French brandy. In 2020, Chinese researchers reported that 4VA is a locust pheromone that causes the insects to swarm.
This month, Hong Pan, Daoyi Guo, and co-workers at Gannan Normal University (Ganzhou, China) described a . They used engineered Escherichia coli as the host organism to synthesize the pheromone from erythrose-4-phosphate3 and phosphoenolpyruvate4. The authors state that their synthetic method is an improvement over current chemical methods for producing 4VA and would increase the supply of the compound for capturing locusts and monitoring their population dynamics.
1. CAS Reg. No. 91-64-5.
2. CAS Reg. No. 637-69-4.
3. CAS Reg. No. 138-08-9.
4. CAS Reg. No. 585-18-2.
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Uranyl nitrate fast facts
| CAS Reg. No. | 10102-06-4 |
| CA Index Name | Uranium, bis(nitrato-魏翱)dioxo- |
| Empirical formula | N2O8U |
| Molar mass | 394.04 g/mol |
| Appearance | Yellow-green, hygroscopic crystals |
| Melting point | 60 掳C |
| Water solubility | 1220 g/L (20 掳C) |
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