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Plutonium-239 (239 Pu or Pu-239) is an isotope of plutonium. ... Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,110 years. [1] Nuclear properties
plutonium-239: 24,110 761 10 12 seconds (teraseconds) isotope half-life millennia ... half-life 10 15 years 10 24 seconds hafnium-174: 70 2.2 vanadium-50: 140 4.4
Plutonium-244 is the most stable isotope of plutonium, with a half-life of about 80 million years. It is not significantly produced in nuclear reactors because 243 Pu has a short half-life, but some is produced in nuclear explosions. 244 Pu has been found in interstellar space [13] and has the second longest half-life of any non-primordial ...
With a relatively short half-life, 239 U decays to 239 Np, which decays into 239 Pu. [ 57 ] [ 58 ] Finally, exceedingly small amounts of plutonium-238, attributed to the extremely rare double beta decay of uranium-238, have been found in natural uranium samples.
Spent nuclear fuel contains 3% by mass of 235 U and 239 Pu ... The burnt fuels are Thorium with Reactor-Grade Plutonium (RGPu), ... The half life is long, around 30 ...
Disposal of plutonium and other high-level wastes is a more difficult problem that continues to be a subject of intense debate. As an example, plutonium‑239 has a half-life of 24,100 years, and a decay of ten half-lives is required before a sample is considered to cease its radioactivity.
Weapons-grade plutonium is defined as being predominantly Pu-239, typically about 93% Pu-239. [24] Pu-240 is produced when Pu-239 absorbs an additional neutron and fails to fission. Pu-240 and Pu-239 are not separated by reprocessing. Pu-240 has a high rate of spontaneous fission, which can cause a nuclear weapon to pre-detonate.
In reality, this is impractical because even "weapons grade" 239 Pu is contaminated with a small amount of 240 Pu, which has a strong propensity toward spontaneous fission. Because of this, a reasonably sized gun-type weapon would suffer nuclear reaction ( predetonation ) before the masses of plutonium would be in a position for a full-fledged ...