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Samarium-149 has a high cross section for neutron capture (41,000 barns) and so is used in control rods of nuclear reactors. Its advantage compared to competing materials, such as boron and cadmium, is stability of absorption – most of the fusion products of 149 Sm are other isotopes of samarium that are also good neutron absorbers .
Samarium-149 (149 Sm) is an observationally stable isotope of samarium (predicted to decay, but no decays have ever been observed, giving it a half-life at least several orders of magnitude longer than the age of the universe), and a product of the decay chain from the fission product 149 Nd (yield 1.0888%).
Samarium-149 is the second most important neutron poison in nuclear reactor physics. Samarium-151, produced at lower yields, is the third most abundant medium-lived fission product but emits only weak beta radiation. Both have high neutron absorption cross sections, so that much of them produced in a reactor are later destroyed there by neutron ...
Some of the fission products generated during nuclear reactions have a high neutron absorption capacity, such as xenon-135 (microscopic cross-section σ = 2,000,000 barns (b); up to 3 million barns in reactor conditions) [3] and samarium-149 (σ = 74,500 b). Because these two fission product poisons remove neutrons from the reactor, they will ...
beta decays to very long lived Samarium-147 (half life>age of the universe); has seen some use in radioisotope thermoelectric generators: 1.0888%: Samarium: 149 Sm: Observationally stable: 2nd most significant neutron poison. 0.9% [3] Iodine: 129 I: 15.7 My: Long-lived fission product. Candidate for disposal by nuclear transmutation. 0.4203% ...
Some fission products decay with the release of delayed neutrons, important to nuclear reactor control. Other fission products, such as xenon-135 and samarium-149, have a high neutron absorption cross section. Since a nuclear reactor must balance neutron production and absorption rates, fission products that absorb neutrons tend to "poison" or ...
Conversely, of the 251 known stable nuclides, only five have both an odd number of protons and odd number of neutrons: hydrogen-2 , lithium-6, boron-10, nitrogen-14, and tantalum-180m. Also, only four naturally occurring, radioactive odd–odd nuclides have a half-life >10 9 years: potassium-40 , vanadium-50 , lanthanum-138 , and lutetium-176 .
Samarium has seven naturally occurring isotopes, and neodymium has seven. The two elements are joined in a parent–daughter relationship by the alpha decay of parent 147 Sm to radiogenic daughter 143 Nd with a half-life of 1.066(5) × 10 11 years and by the alpha decay of 146 Sm (an almost-extinct radionuclide with a half-life of 9.20(26) × 10 7 years [2] [a]) to produce 142 Nd.