Prior to the realisation of the harmfulness of radiation, uranium was included in false teeth and dentures, as its slight fluorescence made the dentures appear more like real teeth in a variety of lighting conditions.
Depleted UO (DUO) can be used as a material for radiation shielding. For example, DUCRETE is a "heavy concrete" material where gravel is replaced with uranium dioxide aggregate; this material is investigated for use for casks for radioactive waste. Casks can be also made of DUO-steel cermet, a composite material made of an aggregate of uranium dioxide serving as radiation shielding, graphite and/or silicon carbide serving as neutron radiation absorber and moderator, and steel as the matrix, whose high thermal conductivity allows easy removal of decay heat.
Depleted uranium dioxide can be also used as a catalyst, e.g. for degradation of volatile organic compounds in gaseous phase, oxidation of methane to methanol, and removal of sulfur from petroleum. It has high efficiency and long-term stability when used to destroy VOCs when compared with some of the commercial catalysts, such as precious metals, TiO, and CoO catalysts. Much research is being done in this area, DU being favoured for the uranium component due to its low radioactivity.
The use of uranium dioxide as a material for rechargeable batteries is being investigated. The batteries could have high power density and potential of 4.7 V per cell. Another investigated application is in photoelectrochemical cells for solar-assisted hydrogen production where UO is used as a photoanode. In earlier times, uranium dioxide was also used as heat conductor for current limitation (URDOX-resistor), which was the first use of its semiconductor properties.
Uranium dioxide displays strong piezomagnetism in the antiferromagnetic state, observed at cryogenic temperatures below 30 kelvins. Accordingly, the linear magnetostriction found in UO changes sign with the applied magnetic field and exhibits magnetoelastic memory switching phenomena at record high switch-fields of 180,000 Oe. The microscopic origin of the material magnetic properties lays in the face-centered-cubic crystal lattice symmetry of uranium atoms, and its response to applied magnetic fields.