DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 1-6, 10-12, 15-17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gupta et al. (“Effect of oxygen containing compounds in uranium tetrafluoride on its non-adiabatic calciothermic reduction characteristics”. Nuclear Engineering and Technology 53 (2021) 1931-1938.) in view of Spiegler (US2733126).
Regarding Claims 1, 5-6 and 12, Gupta teaches a method of recovering U from uranium tetrafluoride using a furnace including a reactor comprising:
Placing UF4 and a first material of Ca into the reactor; (Section 2.3)
Raising the temperature of the mixture to an initial temperature where the reaction drives the temperature to a raised temperature resulting in the formation of a slag phase and a metal phase separate from the slag phase in the reactor (Section 2.3); and performing slag-metal separation (Section 3.2);
However, the prior art does not teach both first and second materials being (only Ca); however, Spiegler teaches a method of recovering U from U-halide where uranium tetrafluoride may be mixed with more active metals of Ca and Mg where the mixture is the in the form of halides (including F) (Col. 1); therefore, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to modify the Ca-UF4 mixture of Gupta to comprise first and second materials of halides of Mg and Ca fluorides for the purpose of improving the reduction of Uranium hexafluoride to recover U. The molten slag formed would be expected to form a eutectic composition from the constituents.
Regarding claim 2, the first and second materials are considered to react with UF4 to form U metal;
Regarding Claim 3, the raised temperature is 2000 C (Section 3.1), above the U melting temperature of 1132 C.
Regarding Claim 4 and 15, as the slag and the metals are formed as solids after heating, it is interpreted that cooling resulted in the formed structure.
Regarding Claims 10, 11 and 16-17, the reactor of Gupta is a graphite reactor and coated with yttria (Fig 2b-c)
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7-9, 13-14 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The closest prior art of record above, does not teach or suggest AlF3 as a separate material or that one of the components does not react with U.
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/RICARDO D MORALES/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1738