Plutonium decay schemes

Table 17.1 Decay schemes of some of the plutonium isotopes ... 

The calculation results are satisfactory even when using simplified calculation schemes with lumped fission products. The reasons for the improvement in the bumup component are linked to differences in the energy release per fission and the fission cross section of Plutonium-239, which for the same power normalisation induce a different fluence. Also of importance are the fission product cross sections and the fact that complete decay chains are explicitly treated. However the decay component remains mispredicted. 

A two-stage, countercurrent molten-salt extraction process is used to extract Am from many kilograms of aged plutonium metal in which Am has grown-in by beta decay of Pu. The purification scheme, based partly on molten-halide/molten-metal studies at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory, ronoves about 90% of the americium from plutonium metal, typically containing 200 2000 ppm Am [16]. 

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