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Americium-241 (241 Am, Am-241) ... It is commonly found in ionization type smoke detectors and is a potential fuel for long-lifetime radioisotope thermoelectric ...
Americium-241 is the most common isotope of americium in nuclear waste. [8] It is the isotope used in an americium smoke detector based on an ionization chamber . It is a potential fuel for long-lifetime radioisotope thermoelectric generators .
Americium-241 is a candidate isotope with much greater availability than 238 Pu. Although 241 Am has a half-life of 432 years, which is about five times longer than that of 238 Pu and could hypothetically power a device for centuries, missions with more than 10 years were not the subject of the research until 2019. [44]
Americium is produced mostly artificially in small quantities, for research purposes. A tonne of spent nuclear fuel contains about 100 grams of various americium isotopes, mostly 241 Am and 243 Am. [24] Their prolonged radioactivity is undesirable for the disposal, and therefore americium, together with other long-lived actinides, must be ...
americium-233: 3.2 190 francium-224: 3.33 200 neon-24: 3.38 203 californium-242: 3.49 209 lead-192: 3.5 210 americium-236: 3.6 220 astatine-220: 3.71 223 californium-241: 3.78 227 radium-229: 4.0 240 mendelevium-251: 4.0 240 francium-225: 4.0 240 neptunium-229: 4.0 240 bismuth-196m2: 4.00 240 radium-232: 4.2 250 polonium-199m: 4.17 250 ...
Plutonium-241 is fissile, but beta decays with a half-life of 14 years to americium-241. ... 242 Pu's half-life is about 15 times as long as 239 Pu's half-life; ...
Americium-241 has been used as a source of low energy gamma photons, ... Am-241: 241: 432 yr: 0.06: Used in most smoke detectors ... and long half-lives usually mean ...
The most important isotopes of these elements in spent nuclear fuel are neptunium-237, americium-241, americium-243, curium-242 through -248, and californium-249 through -252. Plutonium and the minor actinides will be responsible for the bulk of the radiotoxicity and heat generation of spent nuclear fuel in the long term (300 to 20,000 years in ...