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Why is yellow cake shipped to a central purification facility?

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Enrichment of uranium — uranium processing How uranium is enriched to make a nuclear weapon.

Yellow cake is shipped to a central purification facility because it requires further chemical processing to reach the high purity levels necessary for nuclear-grade specifications.12

While yellow cake is a concentrated form of uranium—typically containing 75 to 95 percent uranium compounds—it is not yet pure enough for use in the nuclear fuel cycle. At the central facility, the material undergoes a solvent-extraction process using tributyl phosphate. This involves dissolving the yellow cake in nitric acid and selectively extracting the uranium to produce highly purified uranyl nitrate. This refining step is essential to remove remaining impurities and ensure the material meets the strict standards required for subsequent nuclear applications.12