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Weapons-grade nuclear material is any fissionable nuclear material that is pure enough to make a nuclear weapon and has properties that make it particularly suitable for nuclear weapons use. Plutonium and uranium in grades normally used in nuclear weapons are the most common examples.
Fission product yields by mass for thermal neutron fission of U-235 and Pu-239 (the two typical of current nuclear power reactors) and U-233 (used in the thorium cycle). This page discusses each of the main elements in the mixture of fission products produced by nuclear fission of the common nuclear fuels uranium and plutonium.
Yellowcake (also called urania) is a type of powdered uranium concentrate obtained from leach solutions, in an intermediate step in the processing of uranium ores. It is a step in the processing of uranium after it has been mined but before fuel fabrication or uranium enrichment. Yellowcake concentrates are prepared by various extraction and ...
Plutonium–uranium, with about 15–30 mol.% plutonium, can be used as a nuclear fuel for fast breeder reactors. Its pyrophoric nature and high susceptibility to corrosion to the point of self-igniting or disintegrating after exposure to air require alloying with other components.
This property makes uranium hydrides convenient starting materials to create reactive uranium powder along with various uranium carbide, nitride, and halide compounds. [6] Two crystal modifications of uranium hydride exist: an α form that is obtained at low temperatures and a β form that is created when the formation temperature is above 250 °C.
Both plutonium-239 and uranium-235 are obtained from Natural uranium, which primarily consists of uranium-238 but contains traces of other isotopes of uranium such as uranium-235. The process of enriching uranium , i.e. increasing the ratio of 235 U to 238 U to weapons grade, is generally a more lengthy and costly process than the production of ...
PUREX (plutonium uranium reduction extraction) is a chemical method used to purify fuel for nuclear reactors or nuclear weapons. [7] PUREX is the de facto standard aqueous nuclear reprocessing method for the recovery of uranium and plutonium from used nuclear fuel ( spent nuclear fuel , or irradiated nuclear fuel).
It was thought that if a plutonium gun-type bomb could be created, then the uranium gun-type bomb would be very easy to make by comparison. However, it was discovered in April 1944 that reactor -bred plutonium ( Pu-239 ) is contaminated with another isotope of plutonium, Pu-240 , which increases the material's spontaneous neutron-release rate ...