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The LFTR resists diversion of its fuel to nuclear weapons in four ways: first, the 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 U-232 are also produced. U-232 has a decay chain product (thallium-208) that emits powerful, dangerous gamma ...
The longest-lived and most abundant (nearly 100%) naturally occurring isotope of protactinium, protactinium-231, has a half-life of 32,760 years and is a decay product of uranium-235. Much smaller trace amounts of the short-lived protactinium-234 and its nuclear isomer protactinium-234m occur in the decay chain of uranium-238 .
The former occurs as an intermediate decay product of 235 U, while the latter two occur as intermediate decay products of 238 U. 231 Pa makes up nearly all natural protactinium. The primary decay mode for isotopes of Pa lighter than (and including) the most stable isotope 231 Pa is alpha decay , except for 228 Pa to 230 Pa, which primarily ...
Beta emission: the decay energy is 0.48 MeV and the decay product is plutonium-236. This usually decays (half-life 2.8 years) to uranium-232, which usually decays (half-life 69 years) to thorium-228, which decays in a few years to lead-208. Alpha emission: the decay energy is 5.007 MeV and the decay product is protactinium-232. This decays with ...
A sample of thorium. Thorium-based nuclear power generation is fueled primarily by the nuclear fission of the isotope uranium-233 produced from the fertile element thorium.A thorium fuel cycle can offer several potential advantages over a uranium fuel cycle [Note 1] —including the much greater abundance of thorium found on Earth, superior physical and nuclear fuel properties, and reduced ...
In some thorium breeding scenarios, the intermediate product protactinium 233 Pa would be removed from the reactor and allowed to decay into highly pure 233 U, an attractive bomb-making material. More modern designs propose to use a lower specific power or a separate thorium breeding blanket.
Thorium-233 decays into protactinium-233 through beta decay. 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, to maintain the neutron economy (if it misses the 233 U ...
2 PaCl 5 + H 2 → 2 PaCl 4 + 2 HCl 3 PaCl 5 + Al → 3 PaCl 4 + AlCl 3. It can also be obtained by the chlorination of protactinium(IV) oxide: [2] PaO 2 + 2 CCl 4 → PaCl 4 + 2 COCl 2. It can also be formed during the thermal decomposition of protactinium oxychloride at 500 °C in a vacuum: [3] 2 PaOCl 2 → PaCl 4 + PaO 2