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Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is considered radioactive. Three of the most common types of decay are alpha, beta, and gamma decay.
Commercial-grade heavy water is slightly radioactive due to the presence of minute traces of natural tritium, but the same is true of ordinary water. Heavy water that has been used as a coolant in nuclear power plants contains substantially more tritium as a result of neutron bombardment of the deuterium in the heavy water (tritium is a health ...
An example of the production cycle is a 90-minute irradiation of 2 milliliters of 18 O-enriched water in a titanium cell, through a 25 μm thick window made of Havar (a cobalt alloy) foil, with a proton beam having an energy of 17.5 MeV and a beam current of 30 microamperes.
Since tritium itself is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, the coolant becomes contaminated with radioactive isotopes and must be kept from leaking into the environment. Additionally, this effect must be taken into account for longer cycles of nuclear reactor operation and thus requires higher initial concentration of boron in the coolant.
Isotope hydrology [1] is a field of geochemistry and hydrology that uses naturally occurring stable and radioactive isotopic techniques to evaluate the age and origins of surface and groundwater and the processes within the atmospheric hydrologic cycle. [2]
Radiochemistry is the chemistry of radioactive materials, in which radioactive isotopes of elements are used to study the properties and chemical reactions of non-radioactive isotopes (often within radiochemistry the absence of radioactivity leads to a substance being described as being inactive as the isotopes are stable).
Water portal; Tritiated water is a radioactive form of water in which the usual protium atoms are replaced with tritium atoms. In its pure form it may be called tritium oxide (T 2 O or 3 H 2 O) or super-heavy water. Pure T 2 O is a colorless liquid, [1] and it is corrosive due to self-radiolysis. Diluted, tritiated water is mainly H 2 O plus ...
A pressurized water reactor (PWR) is a type of light-water nuclear reactor. PWRs constitute the large majority of the world's nuclear power plants (with notable exceptions being the UK, Japan, India and Canada). In a PWR, water is used both as a neutron moderator and as coolant fluid for the reactor core.