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Thorium 232 is rather abundant on Earth and is now coming into use as a breeder fuel. It behaves almost exactly like uranium- 238, merely shifted by even numbers of protons and neutrons, which means that it is not the actual fission fuel. What isotope is?

Short Answer

Expert verified

The fissile material in a thorium reactor is uranium- 238.

Step by step solution

01

Given information

Thorium 232 is rather abundant on Earth and is now coming into use as a breeder fuel.

02

Concept of Isotope

The varieties of chemical elements known as isotopes have the same number of. Isotopes are variations of chemical elements that have a varied number of neutrons but the same number of protons and electrons. In other words, isotopes are different forms of the same element that have different amounts of nucleons (the sum of protons and neutrons) because of variations in the total number of neutrons in each of their individual nuclei.

Examples of radioactive isotopes include carbon-14, tritium (hydrogen-3), chlorine-36, uranium-235, and uranium-238.

03

Explanation of the isotope

Thorium- 232is rather stable, with a half-life of more than 14 billion years.

Thorium- 231 can be fissile material, but nature contains only trace amounts.

In a thorium-fueled reactor, the thorium 232absorbs neutrons eventually to produce uranium- 234.

This is like in the uranium reactors, where fertile uranium- 238absorbs a neutron to form fissile Uranium- 239 , then forms Plutonium 239 by beta decay and serves as fuel for the reactor.

So, the fissile material in a thorium reactor is uranium- 238.

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