Nuclear fuel

Nuclear fuel materials are used for nuclear fission reactors.

Such substances are mainly uranium -235 and plutonium -239, which are generally present in oxide form. Natural uranium consists of approximately 99.3 percent of the uranium isotope uranium -238 and approximately 0.7 percent of uranium - 235th As in nuclear reactors but only the uranium -235 " burned ", the natural uranium must be enriched to varying degrees with uranium -235, depending on the type of reactor so that the reactor is critical. In many reactors, may also be mixed oxide ( MOX), a mixture of uranium and plutonium can be used as nuclear fuel.

Reactor types with the appropriate moderator and coolant can be operated with natural uranium, for example, the CANDU reactors.

In any uranium- filled reactor, the transmutation of uranium -238 into plutonium -239 will take place. Even without treatment and without filling with MOX uses a uranium reactor and thus indirectly also always plutonium as fuel.

Uranium -233, a fuel that can be bred from the frequently occurring thorium, so far has no economic significance.

In the nuclear fuel of a reactor made ​​in operating nuclear fission chain reactions in which energy in the form of heat is released. In nuclear power plants is then obtained from this thermal energy electrical energy.

The handling of nuclear fuel is regulated by law, for example, by the German Atomic Energy Act ( see also nuclear materials ).

• Nuclear fuel
• Nuclear Chemistry
• Nuclear reprocessing