Fission products types

Gr. technetos, artificial) Element 43 was predicted on the basis of the periodic table, and was erroneously reported as having been discovered in 1925, at which time it was named masurium. The element was actually discovered by Perrier and Segre in Italy in 1937. It was found in a sample of molybdenum, which was bombarded by deuterons in the Berkeley cyclotron, and which E. Eawrence sent to these investigators. Technetium was the first element to be produced artificially. Since its discovery, searches for the element in terrestrial material have been made. Finally in 1962, technetium-99 was isolated and identified in African pitchblende (a uranium rich ore) in extremely minute quantities as a spontaneous fission product of uranium-238 by B.T. Kenna and P.K. Kuroda. If it does exist, the concentration must be very small. Technetium has been found in the spectrum of S-, M-, and N-type stars, and its presence in stellar matter is leading to new theories of the production of heavy elements in the stars. 

Extractants derived from the carbamoylmethylphosphoryl moiety (CMP) were studied in the phosphonate, phosphinate, and phosphine oxide classes. Our studies focused on dihexyl-N,N-diethylcarba-moylmethylphosphonate, DHDECMP, hexyl hexyl-N,N-diethylcarbamoyl-methylphosphinate, HHDECMP, and octyl(phenyl)-N,N-diisobutylcarba-moylmethylphosphine oxide, 0D[ IB]CMP0. The three types of CMP extractants were compared on the basis of nitric acid and extractant dependencies for Am(III), solubility of complexes on loading with Nd(III) and U(VI), and selectivity over fission products. On the basis of the above data two conceptual flowsheets were developed. The first flowsheet involves the extraction of all of the actinides from HLLW using 0.4 M 0D[IB]CMP0 in DEB. The second flowsheet involves the extraction of all of the actinides from dissolved spent LWR fuel using 0.8 M DHDECMP in DEB. 

Mass spectra of compounds 11 are characterized by the presence of fission products of the molecule tricyclic moiety (m/e of fragments depending on alkaloid type) and ergolene moiety with m/e 448 and after SO2 elimination m/e 384 = 448 -SO2. The characteristic IH-NMR is the absence of signal for C - 2 proton and a new multiplet at region 7-7.5 ppm for aromatic protons from saccharin moiety. 

In broad terms, the following types of reactions are mediated by the homolytic fission products of water (formally, hydrogen, and hydroxyl radicals), and by molecular oxygen including its excited states—hydrolysis, elimination, oxidation, reduction, and cyclization. 

Similarly, some INAA data contributed to the derivation of a reference value for Ba in SDO-i were biased high by an interference from Ru (Wandless 1993). The Ru is a fission product of U, whose concentration of 40 qg/g is relatively high in SDO-1. In this case, no appropriate reference sample was available for analysis to control the SDO-1 results the interference was identified through the disagreement between INAA data and data produced using XRF and ICP-AES methods on the same sample. A bias-free method again resulted when analysis of an atypical type led to detection of a rarely encountered but sizeable spectral overlap. Once identified, correction was straightforward. 

There is also a third type of reactive species that we shall discuss in detail in Chapter 9, namely radicals. Briefly, radicals are uncharged entities that carry an unpaired electron. A methyl radical CH3 results from the fission of a C-H bond in methane so that each atom retains one of the electrons. In the methyl radical, carbon is sp hybridized and forms three CT C-H bonds, whilst a single unpaired electron is held in a 2/ orbital oriented at right angles to the plane containing the ct bonds. The unpaired electron is always shown as a dot. The simplest of the radical species is the other fission product, a hydrogen atom. 

Fig. 2. Pie-diagram showing the major types of fission products and the actinides in their relative proportions (adapted from Oversby 1994).

The most efficient matrix for retention of actinides and fission products is the uraninite mineral. However, it has been shown that other matricies such as apatite, clay minerals, zirconium silicates, and oxides (Fe, Mn) may also be important in the retention of fission products and actinides. For example, Pu was stored in apatite (Bros et al. 1996) and chlorite (Bros et al. 1993) in the core of the reactor 10. In the core of the reactors, between uraninite grains, 20-200 (j.m-sized metallic aggregates containing fissiogenic Ru, Rh, and Te associated with As, Pb, and S were found. These aggregates also exist in spent fuels of water-pressured type reactor plants, suggesting their analogy with spent fuels. 

The retention of fission product iodine and xenon by unirradiated and irradiated pyrolytic-carbon-coated (Th,U)C2 fuel particles has been studied in annealing experiments and has been compared with similar studies of the release (or retention) of barium and strontium. The objective was to study the effects of irradiation on the retention of the two types of fission products and to determine the mechanism of release which could account for the observed behaviors. In both unirradiated and irradiated particles, iodine and xenon were found to be retained highly by the impervious isotropic pyrolytic coating which was unaffected by the irradiation. In contrast, the fuel kernel which controls the release of the metallic species is damaged severely by the irradiation, resulting in a marked decrease in its ability to retain the metals. 

The Purex process, ie, plutonium uranium reduction extraction, employs an organic phase consisting of 30 wt % TBP dissolved in a kerosene-type diluent. Purification and separation of U and Pu is achieved because of the extractability of U02+2 and Pu(IV) nitrates by TBP and the relative inextractability of Pu(III) and most fission product nitrates. Plutonium nitrate and U02(N03)2 are extracted into the organic phase by the formation of compounds, eg, Pu(N03)4 -2TBP. The plutonium is reduced to Pu(III) by treatment with ferrous sulfamate, hydrazine, or hydroxylamine and is transferred to the aqueous phase U remains in the organic phase. Further purification is achieved by oxidation of Pu(III) to Pu(IV) and re-extraction with TBP. The plutonium is transferred to an aqueous product. Plutonium recovery from the Purex process is ca 99.9 wt % (128). Decontamination factors are 106 — 10s (97,126,129). A flow sheet of the Purex process is shown in Figure 7. 

In recent years, acute air pollution problems have been associated with large power plants. Stack discharges depend on the type of power plant. In oil-fired power plants, the emissions are mainly S02 and NOx. In coal-fired operations, emissions include S02, NOx and a variety of radioactive nuclides derived from coal. In nuclear power plants, emissions are limited to small amounts of radioactive fission products. 

The radiation - induced changes noted are in weight loss, gas evolution, mechanical sensitivity, thermal sensitivity and stability, and ex pi performance. The effects will be described with the type of nuclear radiation used. The format describes the radiation effects on expls, propints and pyrots with the sequence of radiations utilized (when applicable) as follows, a - particles, neutrons, fission products, reactor radiation (fast and slo w neutrons plus gammas), gammas (7), underground testing (UGT), X-rays, electrons, and other nuclear radiations... 

Before the development and widespread application of spectroscopic methods for the elucidation of structure, confirmation of the class type of an unknown organic compound was completed by the preparation of two or more crystalline functional derivatives. If the compounds had been previously reported in the literature, agreement between the published physical constants of the derivatives with those prepared by the worker was accepted as proof of identity. In many cases, and particularly in natural product chemistry, functional group recognition led to oxidative, reductive, or hydrolytic breakdown into smaller carbon-containing fragments. These were, if necessary, separated, characterised and identified by derivative preparation. The reassembly of the jig-saw of fragments inferred by the identity of the fission products, then led to postulated structures. 

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