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  2. Fertile material - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertile_material

    A subcritical reactor —regardless of neutron spectrum— can also "breed" fissile nuclides from fertile material, allowing in principle the consumption of very low grade actinides (e.g. Spent MOX fuel whose plutonium-240 content is too high for use in current critical thermal reactors) without the need for highly enriched material as used in ...

  3. Fissile material - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fissile_material

    In the arms control context, particularly in proposals for a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, the term fissile is often used to describe materials that can be used in the fission primary of a nuclear weapon. [6] These are materials that sustain an explosive fast neutron nuclear fission chain reaction. Under all definitions above, uranium-238 (238 U

  4. Fissility (geology) - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fissility_(geology)

    A rock's fissility can be degraded in numerous ways during the geologic process, including clay particles flocculating into a random fabric before compaction, bioturbation during compaction, and weathering during and after uplift. The effect of bioturbation has been documented well in shale cores sampled: past variable critical depths where ...

  5. Uranium-238 - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-238

    238 U can be used as a source material for creating plutonium-239, which can in turn be used as nuclear fuel. Breeder reactors carry out such a process of transmutation to convert the fertile isotope 238 U into fissile 239 Pu. It has been estimated that there is anywhere from 10,000 to five billion years worth of 238 U for use in these power ...

  6. Thorium fuel cycle - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle

    , as the fertile material. In the reactor, 232 Th is transmuted into the fissile artificial uranium isotope 233 U which is the nuclear fuel. Unlike natural uranium, natural thorium contains only trace amounts of fissile material (such as 231 Th), which are insufficient to initiate a nuclear chain reaction. Additional fissile material or another ...

  7. Thorium-232 - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-232

    Thorium-232 is a fertile material; it can capture a neutron to form thorium-233, which subsequently undergoes two successive beta decays to uranium-233, which is fissile. As such, it has been used in the thorium fuel cycle in nuclear reactors; various prototype thorium-fueled reactors have been designed. However, as of 2024, thorium fuel has ...

  8. Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2011 July 11 ...

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/...

    Far more abundant are fertile isotopes, which, after absorbing a neutron, eventually become fissile isotopes. So let us imagine our reactor fuel that contains 5% fissile isotopes (U-235, in this case), and 95% fertile isotopes (U-238, for example). While the fissile isotopes burn up, a large number of neutrons are generated.

  9. Isotopes of thorium - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_thorium

    232 Th is a fertile material able to absorb a neutron and undergo transmutation into the fissile nuclide uranium-233, which is the basis of the thorium fuel cycle. [56] In the form of Thorotrast, a thorium dioxide suspension, it was used as a contrast medium in early X-ray diagnostics. Thorium-232 is now classified as carcinogenic. [57]