TEHRAN, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Iran on Thursday inaugurated a new yellowcake production plant in the central Yazd province, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.
In an address to the ceremony, President of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Mohammad Eslami said the new factory will use the "heap leaching technique" to produce yellowcake for the first time, which could increase production capacity by 50 percent.
As a type of uranium concentrate powder obtained from leach solutions, yellowcake is an intermediate step in the processing of uranium ores. Eslami said Iran seeks to use its yellowcake for generating electricity and producing radiopharmaceuticals.
The new heap leaching technique is an industrial mining process used to extract precious metals, copper, uranium, and other compounds from ore using a series of chemical reactions that absorb specific minerals and re-separate them after their division from other earth materials.
Eslami noted that the inauguration of the yellowcake production plant was among the projects within the AEOI's strategic 20-year vision, adding that 10 other mining projects will be inaugurated by March 2024.
The AEOI chief noted that in the past Iranian calendar year that ended in March, five new uranium mines began production in Iran, in addition to the two that were already operating.
