Publication Laka-library:
Russian plutonium program: Nuclear waste, accidents, and senseless huge costs (2010)
| Author | Ecodefense!, Vladimir Slivyak, NIRS |
 | - |
| Date | 2010 |
| Classification | 2.34.4.10/07 (RUSSIA - WASTE / REPROCESSING GENERAL) |
| Front | 
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From the publication:
1. Introduction Plutonium in History The large-scale extraction of plutonium had been developed by the military industry for theproduction of nuclear weapons. Over the past 50 years, the world produced about 950 tons ofplutonium. This is sufficient to destroy the entire population of the world with no nuclear explosions. Plutonium, Pu, is an artificial radioactive chemical element, atomic number 94, belongs to the actinides. It was discovered in 1940-41 by American scientists G. Seaborg, E. McMillan, J.Kennedy and A. Valem, who received the isotope 238Pu as a result of irradiation of uranium with heavy hydrogen nuclei, deuterons. The known isotopes of plutonium have mass numbers from 232 to 246. Traces of 247Pu and 255Pu isotopes were found in dust collected after the explosionsof thermonuclear bombs. Already by 1958, according to the UN, from eight to ten tons ofplutonium were released to the atmosphere. Among the isotopes of plutonium, the alfa-radioactive 239Pu (T1/2 = 2,4×104 years) is the most important one. Nuclei of 239Pu are capable of a fission chain reaction. In the USSR, the first experiments to get 239Pu started in 1943-44 under the supervision of academicians I.V. Kurchatov and V.G. Khlopin. For the first time, plutonium in the Soviet Union was extracted from neutron irradiated uranium in 1945. In very tight deadlines, its properties were extensively studied, and in 1949, the first in the USSR plant for radiochemical plutonium extraction started operating. Industrial production of 239Pu is based on the interaction of 238U nuclei with neutrons in nuclear reactors. Subsequent isolation of Pu from U, Np and highly radioactive fission products is carried out by radiochemical methods (coprecipitation, extraction, ion exchange, etc.). As a fissile material, 239Pu is used in nuclear reactors and in nuclear and thermonuclear bombs.
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