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A fast-neutron reactor, meaning one with little or no neutron moderator and hence utilising fast neutrons, can be configured as a breeder reactor, producing more fissile material than it consumes, using fertile material in a blanket around the core, or contained in special fuel rods.
Naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) and technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials (TENORM) consist of materials, usually industrial wastes or by-products enriched with radioactive elements found in the environment, such as uranium, thorium and potassium-40 (a long-lived beta emitter that is part of natural potassium on earth) and any of the products of the ...
A quark (/ k w ɔːr k, k w ɑːr k /) is a type of elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter.Quarks combine to form composite particles called hadrons, the most stable of which are protons and neutrons, the components of atomic nuclei. [1]
Pure water is an example of a chemical substance, with a constant composition of two hydrogen atoms bonded to a single oxygen atom (i.e. H 2 O). The atomic ratio of hydrogen to oxygen is always 2:1 in every molecule of water. Pure water will tend to boil near 100 °C (212 °F), an example of one of the characteristic properties that define it.
The chemical properties of an atom are mostly determined by the configuration of electrons that orbit the atom's heavy nucleus. The electron configuration is determined by the charge of the nucleus, which is determined by the number of protons, or atomic number. The number of neutrons is the neutron number. Neutrons do not affect the electron ...
A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium radioactively decays , usually by emitting an alpha particle . The half-life of this decay varies between 159,200 and 4.5 billion years for different isotopes , making them useful for dating the age of the Earth .
In the simplest case, the cation is a metal atom and the anion is a nonmetal atom, but these ions can be of a more complicated nature, e.g. molecular ions like NH 4 + or SO 4 2−. At normal temperatures and pressures, ionic bonding mostly creates solids (or occasionally liquids) without separate identifiable molecules, but the vaporization ...
If an atom has more electrons than protons, then it has an overall negative charge and is called a negative ion (or anion). Conversely, if it has more protons than electrons, it has a positive charge and is called a positive ion (or cation). The electrons of an atom are attracted to the protons in an atomic nucleus by the electromagnetic force.