A country decides to produce 100 tons of uranium fuel for nuclear reactors enriched to 3.5%in235U starting natural uranium as the feed, which has the235U concentration of 0.72%.The target235U concentration in tails will be 0.35%. (a) How much natural uranium feed is needed, in tons? (b) What will be the mass of tails, in tons?
Nuclear Fusion
Nuclear fusion is a type of nuclear reaction. In nuclear fusion, two or more than two lighter atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus. During this process, an enormous amount of energy is released. This energy is called nuclear energy. Nuclear fusion is the energy source of the sun and stars.
Fusion Bomb
A fusion bomb is also known as a thermonuclear bomb or hydrogen bomb which releases a large amount of explosive energy during a nuclear chain reaction when the lighter nuclei in it, combine to form heavier nuclei, and a large amount of radiation is released. It is an uncontrolled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction where isotopes of hydrogen combine under very high temperature to form helium. They work on the principle of operation of atomic fusion. The isotopes of Hydrogen are deuterium and tritium, where they combine their masses and have greater mass than the product nuclei, get heated at high temperatures, and releases energy.
A country decides to produce 100 tons of uranium fuel for nuclear reactors enriched to 3.5%in235U starting natural uranium as the feed, which has the235U concentration of 0.72%.The target235U concentration in tails will be 0.35%.
(a) How much natural uranium feed is needed, in tons?
(b) What will be the mass of tails, in tons?
(c) Calculate the separative work (in kg SWU) needed to accomplish this separa-tion. The value function used in separative work calculations is ∆V= (1−2wx) ln1−wxwx,wherewxis the isotope concentration.
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