This document details the activities of the Hanford 100 Area for the month of February 1945.

During the dissolution in nitric acid of uranium metal which has been irradiated in a pile, radio-iodine (8.0 day) and radio-xenon (5.3 day) are liberated along with the oxides of nitrogen. Since in the plant these gases are discharged into the atmosphere, the presence of the activities (particularly radio-iodine because of its greater chemical reactivity) presents a physiological hazard. As a consequence, the cooling period (that is, the time between the discharge of the metal from the pile and the dissolution of the metal in nitric acid for the extraction of the product) should be sufficiently long so that the activities will have decreased through decay to the point where their concentrations in the atmosphere will not exceed 2.5 {times} 10{sup {minus}13} curies/cc* and 5 {times} 10{sup {minus}11} curies/cc* for radio-iodine and radio-xenon, respectively. A study was made of the existing information concerning the liberation of iodine and xenon during the dissolution of the metal and the information was summarized in a memorandum. At that time it was apparent that radio-iodine would present the greater hazard, and that very little was known about the factors governing the liberation of iodine during the metal dissolution. For this reason, an investigation of …

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