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The most stable isotope is 231 Pa with a half-life of 32,760 years, 233 Pa with a half-life of 26.967 days, and 230 Pa with a half-life of 17.4 days. All of the remaining radioactive isotopes have half-lives less than 1.6 days, and the majority of these have half-lives less than 1.8 seconds.
Protactinium-233 occurs as a result of the decay of thorium-233 as part of the chain of events necessary to produce uranium-233 by neutron irradiation of thorium-232. It is an undesired intermediate product in thorium-based nuclear reactors , and is therefore removed from the active zone of the reactor during the breeding process.
Protactinium-233 has a half-life of 27 days and beta decays into uranium-233; some proposed molten salt reactor designs attempt to physically isolate the protactinium from further neutron capture before beta decay can occur. Uranium-233 usually fissions on neutron absorption but sometimes retains the neutron, becoming uranium-234.
In the thorium cycle, thorium-232 breeds by converting first to protactinium-233, which then decays to uranium-233. If the protactinium remains in the reactor, small amounts of uranium-232 are also produced, which has the strong gamma emitter thallium-208 in its decay chain. Similar to uranium-fueled designs, the longer the fuel and fertile ...
Uranium-233 (233 U or U-233) is a fissile isotope of uranium that is bred from thorium-232 as part of the thorium fuel cycle. Uranium-233 was investigated for use in nuclear weapons and as a reactor fuel. [2] It has been used successfully in experimental nuclear reactors and has been proposed for much wider use as a nuclear fuel.
233 Th is an isotope of thorium that decays into protactinium-233 through beta decay. It has a half-life of 21.83 minutes. [ 1 ] Traces occur in nature as the result of natural neutron activation of 232 Th. [ 58 ]
Uranium-232 (232 U) is an isotope of uranium.It has a half-life of around 69 years and is a side product in the thorium cycle.It has been cited as an obstacle to nuclear proliferation using 233 U as the fissile material, because the intense gamma radiation emitted by 208 Tl (a daughter of 232 U, produced relatively quickly) makes the 233 U contaminated with it more difficult to handle.
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