The desire for increased production was motivated by a fear of Nazi Germany's developing nuclear weapons before the Allies.
[Note 1] When heated to a temperature of 1,500 °C (2,730 °F), the contents of the container reacted violently, leaving a 35-gram ingot of pure uranium metal.
The process was quickly scaled up; by October 1942 the "Ames Project" was producing metal at a rate of 100 pounds (45 kg) per week.
Iowa State University is unique among educational institutions to have received this award for outstanding service, an honor normally given to industry.
[6] The study of rare earths was also advanced during World War II: synthetic plutonium was believed to be rare-earth-like, and it was assumed that knowledge of rare earths would assist in planning for and the study of transuranic elements; ion-exchange methods developed for actinide processing were forerunners to processing methods for rare-earth oxides; methods used for uranium were modified for plutonium, which were subsequently the basis for rare-earth metal preparation.