Fertile material

Transmutation flow between ²³⁸Pu and ²⁴⁵Cm in LWR.^[1] Speed of transmutation varies greatly by nuclide, and percentages are relative to total transmutation and decay. After removal of fuel from reactor, decay will predominate for shorter-lived isotopes such as ²³⁸Pu, ²⁴¹Pu, ^242–244Cm; but ^245–248Cm are all long-lived.

Fertile material is a material that, although not itself fissionable by thermal neutrons, can be converted into a fissile material by neutron absorption and subsequent nuclei conversions.

Naturally occurring fertile materials

Naturally occurring fertile materials that can be converted into a fissile material by irradiation in a reactor include:

• thorium-232 which converts into uranium-233
• uranium-234 which converts into uranium-235
• uranium-238 which converts into plutonium-239

Artificial isotopes formed in the reactor which can be converted into fissile material by one neutron capture include:

• plutonium-238 which converts into plutonium-239
• plutonium-240 which converts into plutonium-241

Some other actinides need more than one neutron capture before arriving at an isotope which is both fissile and long-lived enough to probably be able to capture another neutron and fission instead of decaying.

• plutonium-242 to americium-243 to curium-244 to curium-245
• uranium-236 to neptunium-237 to plutonium-238 to plutonium-239
• americium-241 to curium-242 to curium-243 (or, more likely, curium-242 decays to plutonium-238, which also requires one additional neutron to reach a fissile nuclide)

Since these require a total of 3 or 4 thermal neutrons to eventually fission, and a thermal neutron fission generates only about 2 to 3 neutrons, these nuclides represent a net loss of neutrons. In a fast reactor, they may require fewer neutrons to achieve fission, as well as producing more neutrons when they do fission.

Fissile materials from fertile materials

A fast-neutron reactor, meaning one with little or no neutron moderator and hence utilising fast neutrons, can be configured as a breeder reactor, producing more fissile material than it consumes, using fertile material in a blanket around the core, or contained in special fuel rods. Since plutonium-238, plutonium-240 and plutonium-242 are fertile, accumulation of these and other nonfissile isotopes is less of a problem than in thermal reactors, which cannot burn them efficiently. Breeder reactors using thermal-spectrum neutrons are only practical if the thorium fuel cycle is used, as uranium-233 fissions far more reliably with thermal neutrons than plutonium-239.

Applications

Proposed applications for fertile material includes a space-based facility for the manufacture of fissile material for spacecraft nuclear propulsion. The facility would notionally transport fertile materials from Earth, safely through the atmosphere, and locate them at a space facility at the Earth–Moon L1 Lagrangian point where manufacture of fissile material would occur, eliminating the safety risk of transport of fissile materials from Earth.^[2]

References