Isotopes, fissionable

Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing. Spent fuel from a nuclear reactor contains Pu, Th, and many other radioactive isotopes (fission... 

Separation of tracers from non-isotopic fission products... 

There are three fast-flux reactors proposed for development the sodium cooled, the gas cooled, and the lead cooled. The fission cross sections for fast neutrons (high-energy spectrum neutrons) for all of the fissile actinides are nearly the same so the fast-flux reactors use all of the fissile actinides as fuel. The fast-flux isotopic fission cross sections are smaller than for thermal neutrons so the fraction of fissile isotopes (e.g., 235u 239pu, range of... 

Natural uranium contains both uranium isotopes U and U in the ratio of 1 to 139. The U is the isotope fissionable by slow neutrons. 

The present invention relates to nuclear physics, and more particularly to an improved means and method of converting an isotope fissionable by thermal neutrons to another or the same thermally fissionable isotope in a neutronic reactor. The term thermally fissionable iso> tope as herein used refers, as is common, to an isotope which is fissionable by thermal neutrons. 

In order to explain the above results, as well as for analysis of considerable amount of experimental data on the transuranium isotope fission cross sections, it is necessary to perform more specified analysis using various nuclear data base versions. 

Multiplication constants of some of the uhreflected and graphite-reflected experiments were calculated by multi-groiqi transport-theory methods using the Sn method in the S, approximation and the 16-group cross sections of Hansen and Roach for the U-235 and U-238 isotopes. Fission of U-234 andiU-236 was included and the absorption and scattering of these isotopes were assumed to be the same as those of U-238. Hansen and Roach cross sections were used for the cross sections of the reflecting materials . The TDC and DDK codes plus a modifica-... 

A nuclear reactor produces electricity by harnessing the energy released during the splitting, or fission, of a heavy isotope, such as uranium-235 or plutonium-239. Fission can be induced when the nucleus of one of these isotopes absorbs a free neutron. When the isotope fissions, it generally splits into two smaller isotopes (referred to as fission products) and releases two or three neutrons and about 200 MeV of energy, about 20 million times the energy released... 

Am undergo fission with thermal neutrons of these isotopes and Pu are the most important as they are most readily obtainable. Other heavy nuclei require fast neutrons to induce fission such neutrons are much more difficult to control into a self-sustaining chain-reaction. 

The rapid fission of a mass of or another heavy nucleus is the principle of the atomic bomb, the energy liberated being the destructive power. For useful energy the reaction has to be moderated this is done in a reactor where moderators such as water, heavy water, graphite, beryllium, etc., reduce the number of neutrons and slow those present to the most useful energies. The heat produced in a reactor is removed by normal heat-exchange methods. The neutrons in a reactor may be used for the formation of new isotopes, e.g. the transuranic elements, further fissile materials ( °Pu from or of the... 

The use of larger particles in the cyclotron, for example carbon, nitrogen or oxygen ions, enabled elements of several units of atomic number beyond uranium to be synthesised. Einsteinium and fermium were obtained by this method and separated by ion-exchange. and indeed first identified by the appearance of their concentration peaks on the elution graph at the places expected for atomic numbers 99 and 100. The concentrations available when this was done were measured not in gcm but in atoms cm. The same elements became available in greater quantity when the first hydrogen bomb was exploded, when they were found in the fission products. Element 101, mendelevium, was made by a-particle bombardment of einsteinium, and nobelium (102) by fusion of curium and the carbon-13 isotope. 

In 1964, workers at the Joint Nuclear Research Institute at Dubna (U.S.S.R.) bombarded plutonium with accelerated 113 to 115 MeV neon ions. By measuring fission tracks in a special glass with a microscope, they detected an isotope that decays by spontaneous fission. They suggested that this isotope, which had a half-life of 0.3 +/- 0.1 s might be 260-104, produced by the following reaction 242Pu + 22Ne —> 104 +4n. 

Plutonium as the important isotope Pu is prepared in ton quantities in nuclear reactors. It is produced by the following reactions, wherein the excess neutrons produced by the fission of are captured by to yield Pu. 

The effects of a rather distinct deformed shell at = 152 were clearly seen as early as 1954 in the alpha-decay energies of isotopes of californium, einsteinium, and fermium. In fact, a number of authors have suggested that the entire transuranium region is stabilized by shell effects with an influence that increases markedly with atomic number. Thus the effects of shell substmcture lead to an increase in spontaneous fission half-Hves of up to about 15 orders of magnitude for the heavy transuranium elements, the heaviest of which would otherwise have half-Hves of the order of those for a compound nucleus (lO " s or less) and not of milliseconds or longer, as found experimentally. This gives hope for the synthesis and identification of several elements beyond the present heaviest (element 109) and suggest that the peninsula of nuclei with measurable half-Hves may extend up to the island of stabiHty at Z = 114 andA = 184. 

Potential fusion appHcations other than electricity production have received some study. For example, radiation and high temperature heat from a fusion reactor could be used to produce hydrogen by the electrolysis or radiolysis of water, which could be employed in the synthesis of portable chemical fuels for transportation or industrial use. The transmutation of radioactive actinide wastes from fission reactors may also be feasible. This idea would utilize the neutrons from a fusion reactor to convert hazardous isotopes into more benign and easier-to-handle species. The practicaUty of these concepts requires further analysis. 

Argon-40 [7440-37-1] is created by the decay of potassium-40. The various isotopes of radon, all having short half-Hves, are formed by the radioactive decay of radium, actinium, and thorium. Krypton and xenon are products of uranium and plutonium fission, and appreciable quantities of both are evolved during the reprocessing of spent fuel elements from nuclear reactors (qv) (see Radioactive tracers). 

Krypton and Xenon from Huclear Power Plants. Both xenon and krypton are products of the fission of uranium and plutonium. These gases are present in the spent fuel rods from nuclear power plants in the ratio 1 Kr 4 Xe. Recovered krypton contains ca 6% of the radioactive isotope Kr-85, with a 10.7 year half-life, but all radioactive xenon isotopes have short half-Hves. 

Separation of krypton and xenon from spent fuel rods should afford a source of xenon, technical usage of which is continuously growing (84). As of this writing, however, reprocessing of spent fuel rods is a pohtical problem (see Nuclearreactors). Xenon from fission has a larger fraction of the heavier isotopes than xenon from the atmosphere and this may affect its usefulness in some appHcations. 

Different combinations of stable xenon isotopes have been sealed into each of the fuel elements in fission reactors as tags so that should one of the elements later develop a leak, it could be identified by analyzing the xenon isotope pattern in the reactor s cover gas (4). Historically, the sensitive helium mass spectrometer devices for leak detection were developed as a cmcial part of building the gas-diffusion plant for uranium isotope separation at Oak Ridge, Tennessee (129), and heHum leak detection equipment is stiU an essential tool ia auclear technology (see Diffusion separation methods). 

Neutron-rich lanthanide isotopes occur in the fission of uranium or plutonium and ate separated during the reprocessing of nuclear fuel wastes (see Nuclearreactors). Lanthanide isotopes can be produced by neutron bombardment, by radioactive decay of neighboring atoms, and by nuclear reactions in accelerators where the rate earths ate bombarded with charged particles. The rare-earth content of solid samples can be determined by neutron... 

The isotope molybdenum-99 is produced in large quantity as the precursor to technetium-99y, a radionucleide used in numerous medical imaging procedures such as those of bone and the heart (see Medical imaging technology). The molybdenum-99 is either recovered from the fission of uranium or made from lighter Mo isotopes by neutron capture. Typically, a Mo-99 cow consists of MoO adsorbed on a lead-shielded alumina column. The TcO formed upon the decay of Mo-99 by P-decay, = 66 h, has less affinity for the column and is eluted or milked and either used directly or appropriately chemically derivatized for the particular diagnostic test (100). 

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