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Plutonium-239 will be present both in the reactor core during operation and in spent nuclear fuel that has been removed from the reactor at the end of the fuel assembly's service life (typically several years). Spent nuclear fuel commonly contains about 0.8% plutonium-239.
The initial codename for the Magnox reactor design amongst the government agency which mandated it, the UKAEA, was the Pressurised Pile Producing Power and Plutonium (PIPPA) and as this codename suggests, the reactor was designed as both a power plant and, when operated with low fuel "burn-up"; as a producer of plutonium-239 for the nascent ...
Pu-239 is produced artificially in nuclear reactors when a neutron is absorbed by U-238, forming U-239, which then decays in a rapid two-step process into Pu-239. [22] It can then be separated from the uranium in a nuclear reprocessing plant. [23] Weapons-grade plutonium is defined as being predominantly Pu-239, typically about 93% Pu-239. [24]
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.
Plutonium-239 has half-life 24,100 years. 239 Pu and 241 Pu are fissile; meaning their nuclei can split by being bombarded by slow thermal neutrons, releasing energy, gamma radiation and more neutrons. It can therefore sustain a nuclear chain reaction, leading to applications in nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors.
It was overcome by increasing the amount of uranium charged. The reactor produced plutonium-239 by irradiating uranium-238 with neutrons generated by the nuclear reaction. It was one of three reactors – along with the D and F reactors – built about six miles (10 km) apart on the south bank of the Columbia River.
B Reactor also produced plutonium for the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, Aug. 9, 1945, just weeks after the Trinity Test. Japan surrendered Aug. 15, 1945, ending World War II.
Plutonium-239 and plutonium-241 are fissile, like uranium-235. Small quantities of uranium-236 , neptunium-237 and plutonium-238 are formed similarly from uranium-235. Normally, with low-enriched uranium fuel being changed every five years or so, most of the plutonium-239 is "burned" in the reactor.