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Natural uranium contains about 0.72% 235 U. Depleted uranium has lower mass fractions—up to three times less—of 235 U and 234 U than natural uranium. Since 238 U has a much longer half-life than the lighter isotopes, DU is about 40% less radioactive than natural uranium.
In a fission nuclear reactor, uranium-238 can be used to generate plutonium-239, which itself can be used in a nuclear weapon or as a nuclear-reactor fuel supply. In a typical nuclear reactor, up to one-third of the generated power comes from the fission of 239 Pu, which is not supplied as a fuel to the reactor, but rather, produced from 238 U. [5] A certain amount of production of 239
234 U occurs in natural uranium as an indirect decay product of uranium-238, but makes up only 55 parts per million of the uranium because its half-life of 245,500 years is only about 1/18,000 that of 238 U. The path of production of 234 U is this: 238 U alpha decays to thorium-234. Next, with a short half-life, 234 Th beta decays to ...
While the natural abundance of uranium has been supplemented by the decay of extinct 242 Pu (half-life 375,000 years) and 247 Cm (half-life 16 million years), producing 238 U and 235 U respectively, this occurred to an almost negligible extent due to the shorter half-lives of these parents and their lower production than 236 U and 244 Pu, the ...
Radioactive isotope table "lists ALL radioactive nuclei with a half-life greater than 1000 years", incorporated in the list above. The NUBASE2020 evaluation of nuclear physics properties F.G. Kondev et al. 2021 Chinese Phys. C 45 030001. The PDF of this article lists the half-lives of all known radioactives nuclides.
Depleted uranium consists mainly of 238 U which decays by alpha decay with a half-life of 4.468(3) × 10 9 years. Even if the uranium contained 235 U which decays with a similar half-life of about 7.038 × 10 8 years, both of them would still be regarded as weak alpha emitters and their radioactivity is only hazardous with direct contact or ...
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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 ...