Re: Unclear reactors.

On Mar 15, 10:58 pm, Weatherlawyer <Weatherlaw...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Low enriched Plutonium

Depleted Plutonium is what I meant. (I presume.)

Depleted plutonium contains 19% or more of the heavier Pu240, Pu241and
Pu242 isotopes, the even isotopes are not very fissile. P241 emits low-
energy beta radiation (clothing is typically sufficient to protect an
individual from beta rays) to become Americium241, which emits gamma
radiation at a much lower rate.

Gamma radiation will penetrate deeply in to the body. Because Pu241
has a half-life of around 14.4 years and Am241 has a half-life of 432
years, the older a sample gets, the more dangerous it becomes as a
radioactive material.

Depleted uranium (DU) is uranium primarily composed of the isotope
uranium-238 (U-238). Natural uranium is about 99.27 percent U-238,
0.72 percent U-235, and 0.0055 percent U-234.
http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae576.cfm

Because U-235 is used for fission in nuclear reactors and nuclear
weapons, natural uranium is enriched in U-235 by separating the
isotopes by mass. The by-product of enrichment, called depleted
uranium or DU, contains less than one third as much U-235 and U-234 as
natural uranium, making it less radioactive due to the longer 4.5
billion year half-life of U-238.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium
.

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