Tehran - Students in an Iranian university are planning to celebrate a breakthrough in the Islamic republic's nuclear drive by eating a huge yellow cake, a press report said Thursday.

Yellowcake is milled uranium which is in turn converted into uranium hexafluoride (UF6), a gas that is fed into centrifuges to be enriched to make nuclear fuel - something that Iran managed to do this week.

The Etemad daily said students and staff at Amir-Kabir - a prominent science and engineering university in Tehran - would mark this landmark achievement by devouring a enormous yellow-coloured cake.

The report said the cake would weigh 114kg - the number of Surahs (chapters) in the holy Qur'an - with the event set to take place on Sunday, the Prophet Mohammed's birthday.

The Islamic republic insists its programme is peaceful, but the enrichment process can be extended to make the fissile core of a nuclear warhead and the UN Security Council has demanded Iran freeze such sensitive work. - Sapa-AFP