ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I am are overwhelmed in all humbleness and gratefulness to acknowledge my depth

to all those who have helped me to put these ideas, well above the level of simplicity
and into something concrete.
I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to my teacher as well as our
principal who gave me the golden opportunity to do this wonderful project on the
topic “ Nuclear fission and Nuclear fusion ” , which also helped me in doing a lot of
Research and i came to know about so many new things. I am really thankful to them.
Any attempt at any level can 't be satifactorily completed without the support and
guidance of my parents and friends.
I would like to thank my parents who helped me a lot in gathering different
information, collecting data and guiding me from time to time in making this project ,
despite of their busy schedules ,they gave me different ideas in making this project
unique.
Thanking you,
Riya Rohera
Grade 12
INTRODUCTION OF NUCLEAR FISSION

In nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, nuclear fission is a nuclear reaction or a

radioactive decay process in which the nucleus of an atom splits into two or more
smaller, lighter nuclei. The fission process often produces gamma photons, and
releases a very large amount of energy even by the energetic standards of radioactive
decay.
Nuclear fission of heavy elements was discovered on December 17, 1938 by German
Otto Hahn and his assistant Fritz Strassmann, and explained theoretically in January
1939 by Lise Meitner and her nephew Otto Robert Frisch. Frisch named the process by
analogy with biological fission of living cells. For heavy nuclides, it is an exothermic
reaction which can release large amounts of energy both as electromagnetic
radiation and as kinetic energy of the fragments (heating the bulk material where
fission takes place). In order for fission to produce energy, the total binding energy of
the resulting elements must be more negative (greater binding energy) than that of
the starting element.
Fission is a form of nuclear transmutation because the resulting fragments are not
the same element as the original atom. The two (or more) nuclei produced are most
often of comparable but slightly different sizes, typically with a mass ratio of products
of about 3 to 2, for common fissile isotopes. Most fissions are binary fissions
(producing two charged fragments), but occasionally (2 to 4 times per 1000 events),
three positively charged fragments are produced, in a ternary fission. The smallest of
these fragments in ternary processes ranges in size from a proton to an argon
nucleus.
Apart from fission induced by a neutron, harnessed and exploited by humans, a
natural form of spontaneous radioactive decay (not requiring a neutron) is also
referred to as fission, and occurs especially in very high-mass-number isotopes.
Spontaneous fission was discovered in 1940 by Flyorov, Petrzhak, and Kurchatov in
Moscow, when they confirmed that, without bombardment by neutrons, the fission rate
of uranium was indeed negligible, as predicted by Niels Bohr; it was not.
The unpredictable composition of the products (which vary in a broad probabilistic
and somewhat chaotic manner) distinguishes fission from purely quantum tunneling
processes such as proton emission, alpha decay, and cluster decay, which give the
same products each time. Nuclear fission produces energy for nuclear power and
drives the explosion of nuclear weapons. Both uses are possible because certain
substances called nuclear fuels undergo fission when struck by fission neutrons, and
in turn emit neutrons when they break apart. This makes a self-sustaining nuclear
chain reaction possible, releasing energy at a controlled rate in a nuclear reactor or
at a very rapid, uncontrolled rate in a nuclear weapon.
The amount of free energy contained in nuclear fuel is millions of times the amount of
free energy contained in a similar mass of chemical fuel such as gasoline, making
nuclear fission a very dense source of energy. The products of nuclear fission,
however, are on average far more radioactive than the heavy elements which are
normally fissioned as fuel, and remain so for significant amounts of time, giving rise to
a nuclear waste problem. Concerns over nuclear waste accumulation and over the
destructive potential of nuclear weapons are a counterbalance to the peaceful desire
to use fission as an energy source.
HISTORY
It began in 1789 when a German chemist named Martin Klaproth discovered uranium
but it was not until 1934 that nuclear fission was first achieved following a series of
experiments by Enrico Fermi, an Italian physicist.

The discovery opened the door to research by scientists around the world and in 1942
the first nuclear reactor was successfully tested at the University of Chicago.

Most early atomic research was focused on developing weapons for the second world
war, under the code name Manhattan Project. On 6 August 1945 an American B-29
bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of
Hiroshima. The bomb immediately killed about 80,000 people and tens of thousands
would later die of radiation exposure.

After the war, the US government backed the development of nuclear energy for
civilian purposes.

The Atomic Energy Commission was created in 1946 and approved the construction of
an the experimental breeder reactor I in Idaho. The reactor generated the first
electricity from nuclear energy on 20 December 1951.

The UK’s first nuclear reactor was built in 1947 at the Atomic Energy Research
Establishment in Harwell, to demonstrate the viability of commercial reactors. In 1954
Britain established its own atomic energy authority, to carry out nuclear research,
develop nuclear deterrents and reactor technologies.

The UK’s first commercial reactor, Calder Hall in Cumberland, was opened by the
Queen in 1956 and the UK government claimed it was “the first station anywhere in the
world to produce electricity from atomic energy on a full industrial scale”.

But since then a number of nuclear disasters around the world have blighted the
industry.

On 28 March 1979 a reactor was damaged at Three Mile Island nuclear power station
near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and radiation leaked from water that spilled out of
the primary cooling system. The accident was caused by a combination of mechanical
failure and human error. It triggered fear and confusion but no one was hurt.

Less than a decade later, however, disaster struck in Ukraine at Chernobyl power
station. In the early hours of 26 April 1986 one of four nuclear reactors exploded. The
fallout forced tens of thousands from their homes and many were killed at the time
and in subsequent years by radiation.

It was the only event classed as a “major accident” by the International Atomic Energy
Agency until the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, in March 2011. A powerful
earthquake and tsunami struck Japan’s north-east coast and triggered a triple
meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Almost 19,000 people died in
the tsunami, while 160,000 people fled radiation in Fukushima. Afterwards Germany
decided to end all nuclear power generation.

In the 32 years before Chernobyl, 409 reactors were opened but only 194 have been
connected in the three decades since.

EDF’s decision to press ahead with the £18bn Hinkley Point C project means Britain
will get its first new nuclear power station in a generation. It took a decade of debate
to reach this point and will be another decade before the project on the Somerset
coast is complete.

Nuclear Fission / Nuclear Energy Released in a Fission Reaction

Post the discovery of the neutron, Enrico Fermi found that on bombarding a neutron
different elements produced new radioactive elements. However, on bombarding a
uranium target, the nucleus broke into two nearly equal fragments and released a
great amount of energy. An example of the same is:
10n + 23592U → 23692U → 14456Ba + 8936Kr + 310n
Fission does not always produce Barium and Krypton. Here is another example:
10n + 23592U → 23692U → 13351Sb + 9941Nb + 410n
One more example:
10n + 23592U → 23692U → 14054Xe + 9438Sr + 210n
All the fragmented nuclei produced in fission are neutron-rich and unstable. Also, they
are radioactive and emit beta articles until they reach a stable end-product.

In the example above, the nuclear energy released is of the order of 200 MeV per
nucleus undergoing a fission. Here is how it is calculated: Imagine a heavy nucleus
having A = 240. Now, this nucleus breaks into two nuclei with A = 120 each. Therefore,
Ebn (A = 240 nucleus) = 7.6 MeV
Ebn (each of A = 120 nuclei) = 8.5 MeV
Hence, the gain in binding energy per nucleon is about 0.9 MeV (8.5 – 7.6). Therefore,
the total gain in binding energy is 240×0.9 = 216 MeV.
The disintegration energy in fission events initially appears as the kinetic energy of
the fragments and neutrons. Subsequently, the surrounding matter starts heating up.
The source of energy in nuclear reactors, which produce electricity, is nuclear fission.
The enormous energy released in an atom bomb comes from uncontrolled nuclear
fission.
In engineered nuclear devices, essentially all nuclear fission occurs as a "nuclear
reaction" — a bombardment-driven process that results from the collision of two
subatomic particles. In nuclear reactions, a subatomic particle collides with an atomic
nucleus and causes changes to it. Nuclear reactions are thus driven by the mechanics
of bombardment, not by the relatively constant exponential decay and half-life
characteristic of spontaneous radioactive processes.
Many types of nuclear reactions are currently known. Nuclear fission differs
importantly from other types of nuclear reactions, in that it can be amplified and
sometimes controlled via a nuclear chain reaction (one type of general chain
reaction). In such a reaction, free neutrons released by each fission event can trigger
yet more events, which in turn release more neutrons and cause more fission.

Nuclear Reactor
When 23592U undergoes a fission after being bombarded by a neutron, it splits into
two nuclei and releases a neutron. This extra neutron now initiates the fission of
another 23592U nucleus. For that matter, 2.5 neutrons are released per fission of a
uranium nucleus. Also, fission produces more neutrons than what can be consumed.
This increases the chances of a chain reaction with each neutron that is produced,
triggering another fission. If this chain reaction is uncontrolled, then it can lead to
destruction (like a nuclear bomb). On the other hand, in a controlled manner, it can be
harnessed to generate electric power.
However, there was a small problem. The neutrons generated in fission were highly
energetic. They would escape rather than trigger another fission reaction. Also, it was
observed that slow neutrons have a higher possibility of inducing fission in 23592U
than their faster counterparts.
Now, the energy of a neutron produced in fission of 23592U is around 2 MeV. Unless
these neutrons are slowed down, they tend to escape without inducing fission. This
simply means that we need a lot of fissionable material to sustain the chain reaction.
Slowing Down Fast Neutrons in a Nuclear Reactor to Generate Nuclear Energy
These fast neutrons are slowed down by elastic scattering with a light nuclei.
Chadwick, in his experiments, showed that in an elastic collision with hydrogen, these
neutrons almost come to rest and the protons carry away the energy.
To understand this, imagine two marbles. One at rest and one travelling fast. When
the fast-moving marble hits the stationary marble head-on, it comes to rest.
Therefore, in nuclear reactors, light nuclei are provided along with the fissionable
nuclei to slow down the fast neutrons. These light nuclei are the ‘moderators’. The
most commonly used moderators are water, heavy water (D2O) and graphite.
Moderators
Moderators can ensure that the number of neutrons generated by a given generation
is greater than those produced by the preceding generation. Hence, the
multiplication factor ‘K’ or the measure of the growth rate of neutrons in the reactor
can be in the range 1 < K < 1. Here is what it means:
● K < 1 means that the neutrons are not increasing in number over the
previous generations. Or, they are escaping without inducing fission.
● K> 1 means that the reaction rate and nuclear power in the reactor is
increasing exponentially and can even explode. It needs to be brought
down to as close to unity as possible.
● K = 1 means that the reactor will be able to generate steady power.
This control is managed by using cadmium rods which can absorb neutrons. So, there
is a dual control on a nuclear fission reaction.
● Slowing down the fast neutrons so that the induce fission and start a chain
reaction.
● Introducing neutron absorbing rods in the reactor to ensure that the value
of ‘K’ stays as close to 1 as possible.
Another interesting isotope is 23892U. This isotope is available in abundance and
does not fission. Also, it forms plutonium by capturing neutrons. Here’s how:
23892U + 10n → 23992U → 23993Np + e– + v–
23993Np → 23994Pu + e– + v–
Plutonium is highly radioactive and can also undergo nuclear fission under
bombardment by slow neutrons.

A Nuclear Power Plant

The image above outlines a typical nuclear power plant based on a pressurized water
reactor. In such reactors, water is used as a moderator and heat transfer medium. In
the primary-loop, water is circulated through the reactor vessel and transfers energy
at high temperature and pressure (at about 600 K and 150 atm) to the steam
generator, which is part of the secondary loop.
In the steam generator, evaporation provides high-pressure steam to operate the
turbine that drives the electric generator. The low-pressure steam from the turbine is
cooled and condensed to water and forced back into the steam generator.
Since the energy released in nuclear reactors is very high, they need very less fuel.
However, in these reactors, highly radioactive elements are produced continually.
Hence, this radioactive waste needs to be accumulated regularly. This includes both
fission products and heavy transuranic elements like plutonium and americium.

Nuclear reaction

The chemical element isotopes that can sustain a fission chain reaction are called
nuclear fuels, and are said to be fissile. The most common nuclear fuels are U (the
235

isotope of uranium with mass number 235 and of use in nuclear reactors) and 239
Pu
(the isotope of plutonium with mass number 239). These fuels break apart into a
bimodal range of chemical elements with atomic masses centering near 95 and 135 u
(fission products). Most nuclear fuels undergo spontaneous fission only very slowly,
decaying instead mainly via an alpha-beta decay chain over periods of millennia to
eons. In a nuclear reactor or nuclear weapon, the overwhelming majority of fission
events are induced by bombardment with another particle, a neutron, which is itself
produced by prior fission events.

Nuclear fission in fissile fuels are the result of the nuclear excitation energy produced
when a fissile nucleus captures a neutron. This energy, resulting from the neutron
capture, is a result of the attractive nuclear force acting between the neutron and
nucleus. It is enough to deform the nucleus into a double-lobed "drop", to the point
that nuclear fragments exceed the distances at which the nuclear force can hold two
groups of charged nucleons together and, when this happens, the two fragments
complete their separation and then are driven further apart by their mutually
repulsive charges, in a process which becomes irreversible with greater and greater
distance. A similar process occurs in fissionable isotopes (such as uranium-238), but in
order to fission, these isotopes require additional energy provided by fast neutrons
(such as those produced by nuclear fusion in thermonuclear weapons).
The liquid drop model of the atomic nucleus predicts equal-sized fission products as
an outcome of nuclear deformation. The more sophisticated nuclear shell model is
needed to mechanistically explain the route to the more energetically favorable
outcome, in which one fission product is slightly smaller than the other. A theory of the
fission based on shell model has been formulated by Maria Goeppert Mayer.
The most common fission process is binary fission, and it produces the fission
products noted above, at 95±15 and 135±15 u. However, the binary process happens
merely because it is the most probable. In anywhere from 2 to 4 fissions per 1000 in a
nuclear reactor, a process called ternary fission produces three positively charged
fragments (plus neutrons) and the smallest of these may range from so small a charge
and mass as a proton (Z = 1), to as large a fragment as argon (Z=18). The most common
small fragments, however, are composed of 90% helium-4 nuclei with more energy than
alpha particles from alpha decay (so-called "long range alphas" at ~ 16 MeV), plus
helium-6 nuclei, and tritons (the nuclei of tritium). The ternary process is less common,
but still ends up producing significant helium-4 and tritium gas buildup in the fuel
rods of modern nuclear reactors.[4]

Product nuclei and binding energy

In fission there is a preference to yield fragments with even proton numbers, which is
called the odd-even effect on the fragments' charge distribution. However, no odd-
even effect is observed on fragment mass number distribution. This result is
attributed to nucleon pair breaking.
In nuclear fission events the nuclei may break into any combination of lighter nuclei,
but the most common event is not fission to equal mass nuclei of about mass 120; the
most common event (depending on isotope and process) is a slightly unequal fission
in which one daughter nucleus has a mass of about 90 to 100 u and the other the
remaining 130 to 140 u.Unequal fissions are energetically more favorable because this
allows one product to be closer to the energetic minimum near mass 60 u (only a
quarter of the average fissionable mass), while the other nucleus with mass 135 u is still
not far out of the range of the most tightly bound nuclei (another statement of this, is
that the atomic binding energy curve is slightly steeper to the left of mass 120 u than
to the right of it).

Origin of the active energy and the curve of binding energy

Nuclear fission of heavy elements produces exploitable energy because the specific
binding energy (binding energy per mass) of intermediate-mass nuclei with atomic
numbers and atomic masses close to 62Ni and 56Fe is greater than the nucleon-specific
binding energy of very heavy nuclei, so that energy is released when heavy nuclei are
broken apart. The total rest masses of the fission products (Mp) from a single reaction
is less than the mass of the original fuel nucleus (M). The excess mass Δm = M – Mp is
the invariant mass of the energy that is released as photons (gamma rays) and kinetic
energy of the fission fragments, according to the mass-energy equivalence formula E
= mc2.
The variation in specific binding energy with atomic number is due to the interplay of
the two fundamental forces acting on the component nucleons (protons and
neutrons) that make up the nucleus. Nuclei are bound by an attractive nuclear force
between nucleons, which overcomes the electrostatic repulsion between protons.
However, the nuclear force acts only over relatively short ranges (a few nucleon
diameters), since it follows an exponentially decaying Yukawa potential which makes it
insignificant at longer distances. The electrostatic repulsion is of longer range, since it
decays by an inverse-square rule, so that nuclei larger than about 12 nucleons in
diameter reach a point that the total electrostatic repulsion overcomes the nuclear
force and causes them to be spontaneously unstable. For the same reason, larger
nuclei (more than about eight nucleons in diameter) are less tightly bound per unit
mass than are smaller nuclei; breaking a large nucleus into two or more intermediate-
sized nuclei releases energy.
Also because of the short range of the strong binding force, large stable nuclei must
contain proportionally more neutrons than do the lightest elements, which are most
stable with a 1 to 1 ratio of protons and neutrons. Nuclei which have more than 20
protons cannot be stable unless they have more than an equal number of neutrons.
Extra neutrons stabilize heavy elements because they add to strong-force binding
(which acts between all nucleons) without adding to proton–proton repulsion. Fission
products have, on average, about the same ratio of neutrons and protons as their
parent nucleus, and are therefore usually unstable to beta decay (which changes
neutrons to protons) because they have proportionally too many neutrons compared
to stable isotopes of similar mass.
This tendency for fission product nuclei to undergo beta decay is the fundamental
cause of the problem of radioactive high level waste from nuclear reactors. Fission
products tend to be beta emitters, emitting fast-moving electrons to conserve electric
charge, as excess neutrons convert to protons in the fission-product atoms. See
Fission products (by element) for a description of fission products sorted by element.

Chain reactions

Several heavy elements, such as uranium, thorium, and plutonium, undergo both
spontaneous fission, a form of radioactive decay and induced fission, a form of
nuclear reaction. Elemental isotopes that undergo induced fission when struck by a
free neutron are called fissionable; isotopes that undergo fission when struck by a
slow-moving thermal neutron are also called fissile. A few particularly fissile and
readily obtainable isotopes (notably 233U, 235U and 239Pu) are called nuclear fuels
because they can sustain a chain reaction and can be obtained in large enough
quantities to be useful.
All fissionable and fissile isotopes undergo a small amount of spontaneous fission
which releases a few free neutrons into any sample of nuclear fuel. Such neutrons
would escape rapidly from the fuel and become a free neutron, with a mean lifetime of
about 15 minutes before decaying to protons and beta particles. However, neutrons
almost invariably impact and are absorbed by other nuclei in the vicinity long before
this happens (newly created fission neutrons move at about 7% of the speed of light,
and even moderated neutrons move at about 8 times the speed of sound). Some
neutrons will impact fuel nuclei and induce further fissions, releasing yet more
neutrons. If enough nuclear fuel is assembled in one place, or if the escaping neutrons
are sufficiently contained, then these freshly emitted neutrons outnumber the
neutrons that escape from the assembly, and a sustained nuclear chain reaction will
take place.
An assembly that supports a sustained nuclear chain reaction is called a critical
assembly or, if the assembly is almost entirely made of a nuclear fuel, a critical mass.
The word "critical" refers to a cusp in the behavior of the differential equation that
governs the number of free neutrons present in the fuel: if less than a critical mass is
present, then the amount of neutrons is determined by radioactive decay, but if a
critical mass or more is present, then the amount of neutrons is controlled instead by
the physics of the chain reaction. The actual mass of a critical mass of nuclear fuel
depends strongly on the geometry and surrounding materials.
Not all fissionable isotopes can sustain a chain reaction. For example, 238U, the most
abundant form of uranium, is fissionable but not fissile: it undergoes induced fission
when impacted by an energetic neutron with over 1 MeV of kinetic energy. However,
too few of the neutrons produced by 238U fission are energetic enough to induce
further fissions in 238U, so no chain reaction is possible with this isotope. Instead,
bombarding 238U with slow neutrons causes it to absorb them (becoming 239U) and
decay by beta emission to 239Np which then decays again by the same process to 239Pu;
that process is used to manufacture 239Pu in breeder reactors. In-situ plutonium
production also contributes to the neutron chain reaction in other types of reactors
after sufficient plutonium-239 has been produced, since plutonium-239 is also a fissile
element which serves as fuel. It is estimated that up to half of the power produced by a
standard "non-breeder" reactor is produced by the fission of plutonium-239 produced
in place, over the total life-cycle of a fuel load.
Fissionable, non-fissile isotopes can be used as fission energy source even without a
chain reaction. Bombarding 238U with fast neutrons induces fissions, releasing energy
as long as the external neutron source is present. This is an important effect in all
reactors where fast neutrons from the fissile isotope can cause the fission of nearby
238
U nuclei, which means that some small part of the 238U is "burned-up" in all nuclear
fuels, especially in fast breeder reactors that operate with higher-energy neutrons.
That same fast-fission effect is used to augment the energy released by modern
thermonuclear weapons, by jacketing the weapon with 238U to react with neutrons
released by nuclear fusion at the center of the device. But the explosive effects of
nuclear fission chain reactions can be reduced by using substances like moderators
which slow down the speed of secondary neutrons.

Fission reactors

Critical fission reactors are the most common type of nuclear reactor. In a critical
fission reactor, neutrons produced by fission of fuel atoms are used to induce yet
more fissions, to sustain a controllable amount of energy release. Devices that
produce engineered but non-self-sustaining fission reactions are subcritical fission
reactors. Such devices use radioactive decay or particle accelerators to trigger
fissions.

Critical fission reactors are built for three primary purposes, which typically involve
different engineering trade-offs to take advantage of either the heat or the neutrons
produced by the fission chain reaction:
 ● power reactors are intended to produce heat for nuclear power, either as
part of a generating station or a local power system such as a nuclear
submarine.
● research reactors are intended to produce neutrons and/or activate
radioactive sources for scientific, medical, engineering, or other research
purposes.
● breeder reactors are intended to produce nuclear fuels in bulk from more
abundant isotopes. The better known fast breeder reactor makes 239Pu (a
nuclear fuel) from the naturally very abundant 238U (not a nuclear fuel).
Thermal breeder reactors previously tested using 232Th to breed the fissile
isotope 233U (thorium fuel cycle) continue to be studied and developed.
While, in principle, all fission reactors can act in all three capacities, in practice the
tasks lead to conflicting engineering goals and most reactors have been built with
only one of the above tasks in mind. (There are several early counter-examples, such
as the Hanford N reactor, now decommissioned). Power reactors generally convert the
kinetic energy of fission products into heat, which is used to heat a working fluid and
drive a heat engine that generates mechanical or electrical power. The working fluid is
usually water with a steam turbine, but some designs use other materials such as
gaseous helium. Research reactors produce neutrons that are used in various ways,
with the heat of fission being treated as an unavoidable waste product. Breeder
reactors are a specialized form of research reactor, with the caveat that the sample
being irradiated is usually the fuel itself, a mixture of 238U and 235U. For a more detailed
description of the physics and operating principles of critical fission reactors, see
nuclear reactor physics. For a description of their social, political, and environmental
aspects, see nuclear power.

Fission bombs

One class of nuclear weapon, a fission bomb (not to be confused with the fusion
bomb), otherwise known as an atomic bomb or atom bomb, is a fission reactor
designed to liberate as much energy as possible as rapidly as possible, before the
released energy causes the reactor to explode (and the chain reaction to stop).
Development of nuclear weapons was the motivation behind early research into
nuclear fission which the Manhattan Project during World War II (September 1, 1939 –
September 2, 1945) carried out most of the early scientific work on fission chain
reactions, culminating in the three events involving fission bombs that occurred
during the war. The first fission bomb, codenamed "The Gadget", was detonated during
the Trinity Test in the desert of New Mexico on July 16, 1945. Two other fission bombs,
codenamed "Little Boy" and "Fat Man", were used in combat against the Japanese
cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in on August 6 and 9, 1945 respectively.
Even the first fission bombs were thousands of times more explosive than a
comparable mass of chemical explosive. For example, Little Boy weighed a total of
about four tons (of which 60 kg was nuclear fuel) and was 11 feet (3.4 m) long; it also
yielded an explosion equivalent to about 15 kilotons of TNT, destroying a large part of
the city of Hiroshima. Modern nuclear weapons (which include a thermonuclear fusion
as well as one or more fission stages) are hundreds of times more energetic for their
weight than the first pure fission atomic bombs (see nuclear weapon yield), so that a
modern single missile warhead bomb weighing less than 1/8 as much as Little Boy (see
for example W88) has a yield of 475 kilotons of TNT, and could bring destruction to
about 10 times the city area.
While the fundamental physics of the fission chain reaction in a nuclear weapon is
similar to the physics of a controlled nuclear reactor, the two types of device must be
engineered quite differently (see nuclear reactor physics). A nuclear bomb is designed
to release all its energy at once, while a reactor is designed to generate a steady
supply of useful power. While overheating of a reactor can lead to, and has led to,
meltdown and steam explosions, the much lower uranium enrichment makes it
impossible for a nuclear reactor to explode with the same destructive power as a
nuclear weapon. It is also difficult to extract useful power from a nuclear bomb,
although at least one rocket propulsion system, Project Orion, was intended to work
by exploding fission bombs behind a massively padded and shielded spacecraft.
The strategic importance of nuclear weapons is a major reason why the technology of
nuclear fission is politically sensitive. Viable fission bomb designs are, arguably, within
the capabilities of many, being relatively simple from an engineering viewpoint.
However, the difficulty of obtaining fissile nuclear material to realize the designs is the
key to the relative unavailability of nuclear weapons to all but modern industrialized
governments with special programs to produce fissile materials (see uranium
enrichment and nuclear fuel cycle).

Manhattan Project and beyond

See also: Manhattan Project
In the United States, an all-out effort for making atomic weapons was begun in late
1942. This work was taken over by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1943, and known
as the Manhattan Engineer District. The top-secret Manhattan Project, as it was
colloquially known, was led by General Leslie R. Groves. Among the project's dozens of
sites were: Hanford Site in Washington state, which had the first industrial-scale
nuclear reactors; Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which was primarily concerned with uranium
enrichment; and Los Alamos, in New Mexico, which was the scientific hub for research
on bomb development and design. Other sites, notably the Berkeley Radiation
Laboratory and the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago, played
important contributing roles. Overall scientific direction of the project was managed
by the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer.
In July 1945, the first atomic explosive device, dubbed "Trinity", was detonated in the
New Mexico desert. It was fueled by plutonium created at Hanford. In August 1945, two
more atomic devices – "Little Boy", a uranium-235 bomb, and "Fat Man", a plutonium
bomb – were used against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In the years after World War II, many countries were involved in the further
development of nuclear fission for the purposes of nuclear reactors and nuclear
weapons. The UK opened the first commercial nuclear power plant in 1956. By 2013,
there were 437 reactors in 31 countries.

Natural fission chain-reactors on Earth

Criticality in nature is uncommon. At three ore deposits at Oklo in Gabon, sixteen sites
(the so-called Oklo Fossil Reactors) have been discovered at which self-sustaining
nuclear fission took place approximately 2 billion years ago. Unknown until 1972 (but
postulated by Paul Kuroda in 1956), when French physicist Francis Perrin discovered
the Oklo Fossil Reactors, it was realized that nature had beaten humans to the punch.
Large-scale natural uranium fission chain reactions, moderated by normal water, had
occurred far in the past and would not be possible now. This ancient process was able
to use normal water as a moderator only because 2 billion years before the present,
natural uranium was richer in the shorter-lived fissile isotope 235U (about 3%), than
natural uranium available today (which is only 0.7%, and must be enriched to 3% to be
usable in light-water reactors).
Mass Energy and Nuclear Binding Energy

The famous Einstein’s theory of special relativity established the fact that mass is
another form of energy. Also, you can convert the mass-energy into other forms of
energy. This opened the doors to a better understanding of nuclear masses and the
interaction of nuclei with each other. In this article, we will look at the binding energy
of a nucleus which is essential to understand the nuclear fission and fusion processes.
According to Einstein’s mass-energy equivalence relation, we know that,
E = mc2 … (1)
where c is the velocity of light in vacuum and is ≅ 3 x 108 m/s. Also, E is the energy equivalent of the
mass, ‘m’. Experimental studies of nuclear reactions between nucleons, nuclei, electrons and other more
recently discovered particles. According to the Law of Conservation of Energy, we know that in a reaction, the
initial and final energy is the same provided we take the mass-energy into consideration.
Nuclear Binding Energy
We know that the nucleus is made up of protons and neutrons. So, logically, the mass
of the nucleus = the sum of masses of the protons and neutrons, right? Not really! The
nuclear mass (M) is always less than this sum. To e=understand this better, let’s look at
an example,
168O has 8 protons and 8 neutrons. Now,
● Mass of 8 neutrons = 8 × 1.00866 u
● Mass of 8 protons = 8 × 1.00727 u
● Mass of 8 electrons = 8 × 0.00055 u
Therefore the expected mass of 168O nucleus = = 8 × 2.01593 u = 16.12744 u.
We know from mass spectroscopy experiments that the atomic mass of 168O is
15.99493u. Subtracting the mass of 8 electrons from this, we get the experimental mass
of 168O nucleus = 15.99053u (15.99493u – [8 x 0.00055u]). Hence, we see that there is a
difference between the two numbers of 0.13691u (16.12744 u – 15.99053u).
In simple words, the mass of the 168O nucleus is less than the total mass of its
constituents by 0.13691u. This difference in mass of a nucleus and its constituents is
called the mass defect (ΔM) and is given by
ΔM = [Zmp + (A – Z)mn] – M … (2)
So, what exactly does mass defect mean?
The mass of an oxygen nucleus < the sum of masses of its protons and neutrons (in an
unbounded state). Therefore, the equivalent energy of the oxygen nucleus < the sum
of the equivalent energies of its constituents.
We can also say that if you want to break down an oxygen nucleus into 8 protons and
8 neutrons, then you must provide the extra energy (ΔMc2). The relation between this
energy (Eb) to the mass defect (ΔM) is derived from Einstein’s mass-energy equivalence
relation {equation (1)}. Therefore,
Eb = ΔMc2 … (3)
In other words, if certain protons and neutrons are brought together to form a
nucleus of a certain charge and mass, then an energy Eb is released in the process.
This energy is called the Binding Energy of the nucleus. So, if we want to separate a
nucleus into protons and neutrons, then we will need to provide an energy Eb to the
particles.

NUCLEAR FUSION

INTRODUCTION
 Nuclear fusion, process by which nuclear reactions between light elements form
heavier elements (up to iron). In cases where the interacting nuclei belong to elements
with low atomic numbers (e.g., hydrogen [atomic number 1] or its isotopes deuterium
and tritium), substantial amounts of energy are released. The vast energy potential of
nuclear fusion was first exploited in thermonuclear weapons, or hydrogen bombs,
which were developed in the decade immediately following World War II. For a detailed
history of this development, see nuclear weapon. Meanwhile, the potential peaceful
applications of nuclear fusion, especially in view of the essentially limitless supply of
fusion fuel on Earth, have encouraged an immense effort to harness this process for
the production of power.

Nuclear Fusion in the Sun

The temperature of the core of the Sun is around 1.5 x 107 K. Hence, even in the sun
fusion occurs only when protons having energies above the average energy are
involved. In simple words, for thermonuclear fusion to occur extreme temperature and
pressure conditions are needed. This is only possible in the interiors of the Sun and
other stars.In the Sun, nuclear fusion occurs in a multi-step process where hydrogen is
burned into helium. Here, hydrogen is the fuel and helium, the ash. The process is
represented as follows:

11H + 11H → 21H + e– + v + 0.42 MeV … (4)

e– + e+ → γ + γ + 1.02 MeV … (5)

21H + 11H → 32He + γ + 5.49 MeV … (6)

32He + 32He → 42He + 11H + 11H + 12.86 MeV … (7)

For the fourth reaction to occur, the first three need to occur twice. Thereby, two light
helium nuclei unite to form a normal helium nucleus. This four-step process can be
summarised as:

411H + 2e– → 42He + 2v + 6γ + 26.7 MeV … (8)

Hence, we can see that four hydrogen nuclei combine to form a helium nucleus and
release 26.7 MeV of energy.
 Some Trivia

Hydrogen has been burning in the Sun’s core for around 5 x 109 years! According to
calculations, this will continue for another 5 x 109 years in the future too. In about 5
billion years, the Sun’s core will be primarily helium. This is when it will start to cool
down and collapse under its own gravity. Eventually, this will raise the core
temperature and cause the outer envelope to expand. The sun will then look like a red
giant! Once the core temperature increases to 108 K, energy production will resume
through fusion again. However, this time helium will be burned to make carbon.

The Fusion Reaction

Fusion reactions constitute the fundamental energy source of stars, including the Sun.
The evolution of stars can be viewed as a passage through various stages as
thermonuclear reactions and nucleosynthesis cause compositional changes over long
time spans. Hydrogen (H) “burning” initiates the fusion energy source of stars and
leads to the formation of helium (He). Generation of fusion energy for practical use
also relies on fusion reactions between the lightest elements that burn to form helium.
In fact, the heavy isotopes of hydrogen—deuterium (D) and tritium (T)—react more
efficiently with each other, and, when they do undergo fusion, they yield more energy
per reaction than do two hydrogen nuclei. (The hydrogen nucleus consists of a single
proton. The deuterium nucleus has one proton and one neutron, while tritium has one
proton and two neutrons.)Fusion reactions between light elements, like fission
reactions that split heavy elements, release energy because of a key feature of
nuclear matter called the binding energy, which can be released through fusion or
fission. The binding energy of the nucleus is a measure of the efficiency with which its
constituent nucleons are bound together. Take, for example, an element with Z
protons and N neutrons in its nucleus. The element’s atomic weight A is Z + N, and its
atomic number is Z. The binding energy B is the energy associated with the mass
difference between the Z protons and N neutrons considered separately and the
nucleons bound together (Z + N) in a nucleus of mass M. The formula is

B = (Zmp + Nmn − M)c2,

where mp and mn are the proton and neutron masses and c is the speed of light. It
has been determined experimentally that the binding energy per nucleon is a maximum of
about 1.4 10−12 joule at an atomic mass number of approximately 60—that is,
approximately the atomic mass number of iron. Accordingly, the fusion of elements
lighter than iron or the splitting of heavier ones generally leads to a net release of
energy.
 History Of Fusion Energy Research

The fusion process has been studied in order to understand nuclear matter and
forces, to learn more about the nuclear physics of stellar objects, and to develop
thermonuclear weapons. During the late 1940s and early ’50s, research programs in
the United States, United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union began to yield a better
understanding of nuclear fusion, and investigators embarked on ways of exploiting
the process for practical energy production. Fusion reactor research focused
primarily on using magnetic fields and electromagnetic forces to contain the
extremely hot plasmas needed for thermonuclear fusion.

Researchers soon found, however, that it is exceedingly difficult to contain plasmas at

fusion reaction temperatures because the hot gases tend to expand and escape from
the enclosing magnetic structure. Plasma physics theory in the 1950s was incapable of
describing the behaviour of the plasmas in many of the early magnetic confinement
systems.

The undeniable potential benefits of practical fusion energy led to an increasing call
for international cooperation. American, British, and Soviet fusion programs were
strictly classified until 1958, when most of their research programs were made public
at the Second Geneva Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, sponsored
by the United Nations. Since that time, fusion research has been characterized by
international collaboration. In addition, scientists have also continued to study and
measure fusion reactions between the lighter elements so as to arrive at a more
accurate determination of reaction rates. The formulas developed by nuclear
physicists for predicting the rate of fusion energy generation have been adopted by
astrophysicists to derive new information about the structure and evolution of stars.

Work on the other major approach to fusion energy, inertial confinement fusion (ICF),
was begun in the early 1960s. The initial idea was proposed in 1961, only a year after the
reported invention of the laser, in a then-classified proposal to employ large pulses of
laser energy (which no one then quite knew how to achieve) to implode and shock-heat
matter to temperatures at which nuclear fusion would proceed vigorously. Aspects of
inertial confinement fusion were declassified in the 1970s and, especially, in the early
1990s to reveal important aspects of the design of the targets containing fusion fuels.
Very painstaking and sophisticated work to design and develop short-pulse, high-
power lasers and suitable millimetre-sized targets continues, and significant progress
has been made.

Although practical fusion reactors have not been built yet, the necessary conditions
of plasma temperature and heat insulation have been largely achieved, suggesting
that fusion energy for electric-power production is now a serious possibility.
Commercial fusion reactors promise an inexhaustible source of electricity for
countries worldwide. From a practical viewpoint, however, the initiation of nuclear
fusion in a hot plasma is but the first step in a whole sequence of steps required to
convert fusion energy to electricity. In the end, successful fusion power systems must
be capable of producing electricity safely and in a cost-effective manner, with a
minimum of radioactive waste and environmental impact. The quest for practical
fusion energy remains one of the great scientific and engineering challenges of
humankind.

Fusion reactions in stars

Fusion reactions are the primary energy source of stars and the mechanism for the
nucleosynthesis of the light elements. In the late 1930s Hans Bethe first recognized
that the fusion of hydrogen nuclei to form deuterium is exoergic (i.e., there is a net
release of energy) and, together with subsequent nuclear reactions, leads to the
synthesis of helium. The formation of helium is the main source of energy emitted by
normal stars, such as the Sun, where the burning-core plasma has a temperature of
less than 15,000,000 K. However, because the gas from which a star is formed often
contains some heavier elements, notably carbon (C) and nitrogen (N), it is important to
include nuclear reactions between protons and these nuclei. The reaction chain
between protons that ultimately leads to helium is the proton-proton cycle. When
protons also induce the burning of carbon and nitrogen, the CN cycle must be
considered; and, when oxygen (O) is included, still another alternative scheme, the
CNO bi-cycle, must be accounted for.

The proton-proton nuclear fusion cycle in a star containing only hydrogen begins with
the reaction

H + H → D + β+ + ν; Q = 1.44 MeV,

where the Q-value assumes annihilation of the positron by an electron. The deuterium
could react with other deuterium nuclei, but, because there is so much hydrogen, the D/H ratio is held to very
low values, typically 10−18. Thus, the next step is

H + D → 3He + γ; Q = 5.49 MeV,

 where γ indicates that gamma rays carry off some of the energy yield. The burning of
the helium-3 isotope then gives rise to ordinary helium and hydrogen via the last step
in the chain:

3He + 3He → 4He + 2(H); Q = 12.86 MeV.

At equilibrium, helium-3 burns predominantly by reactions with itself because its

reaction rate with hydrogen is small, while burning with deuterium is negligible due to
the very low deuterium concentration. Once helium-4 builds up, reactions with helium-
3 can lead to the production of still-heavier elements, including beryllium-7, beryllium-
8, lithium-7, and boron-8, if the temperature is greater than about 10,000,000 K.

The stages of stellar evolution are the result of compositional changes over very long
periods. The size of a star, on the other hand, is determined by a balance between the
pressure exerted by the hot plasma and the gravitational force of the star’s mass. The
energy of the burning core is transported toward the surface of the star, where it is
radiated at an effective temperature. The effective temperature of the Sun’s surface is
about 6,000 K, and significant amounts of radiation in the visible and infrared
wavelength ranges are emitted.

Applications of Fusion

-The main application for fusion is in making electricity. Nuclear fusion can pro-vide a
safe, clean energy source for future generations with several advantages over current
fission reactors:

● Abundant fuel supply - Deuterium can be readily extracted from

seawater, and excess tritium can be made in the fusion reactor itself
from lithium, which is readily available in the Earth's crust. Uranium for
fission is rare, and it must be mined and then enriched for use in
reactors.
● Safe - The amounts of fuel used for fusion are small compared to fission
reactors. This is so that uncontrolled releases of energy do not occur.
Most fusion reactors make less radiation than the natural background
radiation we live with in our daily lives.
● Clean - No combustion occurs in nuclear power (fission or fusion), so
there is no air pollution.
● Less nuclear waste - Fusion reactors will not produce high-level nuclear
wastes like their fission counterparts, so disposal will be less of a
problem. In addition, the wastes will not be of weapons-grade nuclear
materials as is the case in fission reactors.
-NASA is currently looking into developing small-scale fusion reactors for powering-
deep-space rockets. Fusion propulsion would boast an unlimited fuel supply
(hydrogen), would be more efficient and would ultimately lead to faster rockets.