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Spent nuclear fuel, occasionally called used nuclear fuel, is nuclear fuel that has been irradiated in a nuclear reactor (usually at a nuclear power plant). It is no longer useful in sustaining a nuclear reaction in an ordinary thermal reactor and, depending on its point along the nuclear fuel cycle , it will have different isotopic ...
Nuclear fuel process A graph comparing nucleon number against binding energy Close-up of a replica of the core of the research reactor at the Institut Laue-Langevin. Nuclear fuel refers to any substance, typically fissile material, which is used by nuclear power stations or other nuclear devices to generate energy.
The nuclear fuel cycle, also called nuclear fuel chain, is the progression of nuclear fuel through a series of differing stages. It consists of steps in the front end , which are the preparation of the fuel, steps in the service period in which the fuel is used during reactor operation, and steps in the back end , which are necessary to safely ...
These are found mixed with fission products in spent nuclear fuel and nuclear fallout. Neutron capture by materials of the nuclear reactor (shielding, cladding, etc.) or the environment (seawater, soil, etc.) produces activation products (not listed here). These are found in used nuclear reactors and nuclear fallout.
The most common type of nuclear fuel used by humans is heavy fissile elements that can be made to undergo nuclear fission chain reactions in a nuclear fission reactor; nuclear fuel can refer to the material or to physical objects (for example fuel bundles composed of fuel rods) composed of the fuel material, perhaps mixed with structural ...
Breeding is the process of converting non-fissile material into fissile material that can be used as nuclear fuel. The non-fissile material that can be used for this process is called fertile material, and constitute the vast majority of current nuclear waste. This breeding process occurs naturally in breeder reactors. As opposed to light water ...
What is nuclear fusion, ... “Fusion could generate four times more energy per kilogram of fuel than fission (used in nuclear power plants) and nearly four million times more energy than burning ...
The high short-term radioactivity of spent nuclear fuel is primarily from fission products with short half-life.The radioactivity in the fission product mixture is mostly due to short-lived isotopes such as 131 I and 140 Ba, after about four months 141 Ce, 95 Zr/ 95 Nb and 89 Sr constitute the largest contributors, while after about two or three years the largest share is taken by 144 Ce/ 144 ...