Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Some isotopes undergo spontaneous fission (SF) with emission of neutrons.The most common spontaneous fission source is the isotope californium-252. 252 Cf and all other SF neutron sources are made by irradiating uranium or a transuranic element in a nuclear reactor, where neutrons are absorbed in the starting material and its subsequent reaction products, transmuting the starting material into ...
Neutron moisture gauges use 252 Cf to find water and petroleum layers in oil wells, as a portable neutron source for gold and silver prospecting for on-the-spot analysis, [21] and to detect ground water movement. [65] The main uses of 252 Cf in 1982 were, reactor start-up (48.3%), fuel rod scanning (25.3%), and activation analysis (19.4%). [66]
Californium-252 production diagram Californium-252 (Cf-252, 252 Cf) undergoes spontaneous fission with a branching ratio of 3.09% and is used in small neutron sources . Fission neutrons have an energy range of 0 to 13 MeV with a mean value of 2.3 MeV and a most probable value of 1 MeV.
A californium neutron flux multiplier (CFX) is a source of neutrons for research purposes. It contains a small amount of californium-252 and several plates of highly enriched uranium (uranium-235) in a subcritical configuration. As the californium undergoes spontaneous nuclear decay, it
Main page; Contents; Current events; Random article; About Wikipedia; Contact us; Help; Learn to edit; Community portal; Recent changes; Upload file
The primary sources are removed from the reactor after the first fuel campaign, usually after a few months, as neutron capture resulting from the thermal neutron flux in an operating reactor changes the composition of the isotopes used, reducing their useful lifetime as neutron sources. Californium-252 (spontaneous fission)
This is a list of radioactive nuclides (sometimes also called isotopes), ordered by half-life from shortest to longest, in seconds, minutes, hours, days and years. Current methods make it difficult to measure half-lives between approximately 10 −19 and 10 −10 seconds.
Compounds of californium are dominated by a chemical form of the element, designated californium(III), that can participate in three chemical bonds. The most stable of californium's twenty known isotopes is californium-251, which has a half-life of 898 years. Californium-252, whose half-life is 2.645 years, is the most common isotope used.