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Diagram of an RTG used on the Cassini probe. A radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG, RITEG), sometimes referred to as a radioisotope power system (RPS), is a type of nuclear battery that uses an array of thermocouples to convert the heat released by the decay of a suitable radioactive material into electricity by the Seebeck effect.
Control rods are usually used in control rod assemblies (typically 20 rods for a commercial PWR assembly) and inserted into guide tubes within the fuel elements. Control rods often stand vertically within the core. In PWRs they are inserted from above, with the control rod drive mechanisms mounted on the reactor pressure vessel head. In BWRs ...
Each RTG has a total weight of 37.7 kg, including about 4.5 kg of Pu-238 [3] and uses 24 pressed plutonium-238 oxide spheres to provide enough heat to generate approximately 157 watts of electrical power initially – halving every 87.7 years. [4] Each RTG initially generated about 2400 watts of thermal power. [5]
Gilbert Atomic Energy Manual — a 60-page instruction book written by Dr. Ralph E. Lapp; Learn How Dagwood Split the Atom — comic book introduction to radioactivity, written with the help of General Leslie Groves (director of the Manhattan Project) and John R. Dunning (a physicist who verified fission of the uranium atom) [11] [12]
As with other plutonium-producing reactors, conserving neutrons is a key element of the design. In magnox, the neutrons are moderated in large blocks of graphite . The efficiency of graphite as a moderator allows the magnox to run using natural uranium fuel, in contrast with the more common commercial light-water reactor which requires slightly ...
These reactors were designed for the production of plutonium for use in nuclear weapons. The only reprocessing required, therefore, was the extraction of the plutonium (free of fission-product contamination) from the spent natural uranium fuel. In 1943, several methods were proposed for separating the relatively small quantity of plutonium from ...
PUREX (plutonium uranium reduction extraction) is a chemical method used to purify fuel for nuclear reactors or nuclear weapons. [7] PUREX is the de facto standard aqueous nuclear reprocessing method for the recovery of uranium and plutonium from used nuclear fuel ( spent nuclear fuel , or irradiated nuclear fuel).
Spent nuclear fuel from nuclear reactors was reprocessed to separate the 96% uranium and the 1% plutonium from the 3% radioactive wastes, which are treated and stored at the plant. The uranium is then made available for customers to be manufactured into new fuel, and the plutonium incorporated into mixed oxide fuel.