This report for March 1961, from the Chemical Processing Department at HAPO, discusses the following: Production operation; Purex and Redox operation; Finished products operation; maintenance: Financial operations; facilities engineering; research; and employee relations.

Three Pu preparations were made and partially characterized. These preparations were one pure PuO/sub 2/ preparation via the batch-oxalate route and two PuO/sub 2/-UO/sub 2/ preparations containing 0.5 and 20 at.% PuO/sub 2/ via the continuous coprecipitation route. The PuO/sub 2/ preparation, which had the largest surface area of the preparations (29 m/sup 2//g), tended to pick up weight when exposed to the box atmosphere. Dry pressing and sintering studies were conducted on the PuO/sub 2/ preparation. The results indicate that the sintered density of PuO/sub 2/ pellets is independent of green density above 5.6 and 6.0 g/cm/sup 3/ for pellets sintered at 1600 and 1400 deg C, respectively. Preliminary reactor physics calculations for near-thermal reactors indicate that extremely long core lives can be attained with a fuel of initial composition 78 at.% Pu/sup 239/, 12 at.% Pu/sup 240/, and 10 at.% Pu/sup 24 / 1>s, and that the reactivity variation during core life is nominal. (D.L.C.)