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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 ...
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
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 ...
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 ...
, 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 ...
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 ...
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.
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]