By Mashum Mollah
Nuclear reactions are harnessed by humans to generate and store energy (usually in the form of electricity). But what is a nuclear reaction? A nuclear reaction can be defined as a reaction in which two atomic nuclei (or one atomic nucleus and a subatomic particle) collide with each other in order to produce one or several nuclides as the product. It is important to note that the nuclides formed as products in a nuclear reaction are different from the reacting nuclides.
The first human-conducted nuclear reaction was accomplished by British physicist Ernest Rutherford. Rutherford bombarded the nucleus of the nitrogen-14 isotope with alpha particles, resulting in a nuclear reaction that gave rise to an oxygen-17 nucleus and a proton as the products. Later, the British physicist John Cockcroft and the Irish physicist Ernest Walton successfully split the nucleus of a lithium-7 atom into two alpha particles by firing artificially accelerated protons at it.
Nuclear reactions often involve the release of huge amounts of energy (usually in the form of heat or light). This is because a small portion of the reactant mass is entirely converted into energy in a nuclear reaction. The nuclear binding energy that is required to hold the subatomic particles of the nucleus together, when released, accounts for the loss of mass. The mass is converted into energy as per Einstien’s famous equation: e = mc2 (where e is the energy, m is the mass, and c is the speed of light in a vacuum).
For example, the energy required to split a gram of salt (sodium chloride) into sodium and chloride ions would depend on the lattice energy of sodium chloride. However, if 1 gram of salt is completely converted into energy, the amount of energy released would be approximately 9 billion kilojoules.
The parting limit of cores is estimated through the estimation of the effective segment that they present for splitting (the more prominent the productive area, the more prominent the plausibility of fiction), which relies upon the vitality of neutrons that associate with these cores. As the vitality brings down, the proficient segment increments thus do the splitting limit. Therefore, parting is well on the way to occur with warm (slow) neutrons than with quick ones. Subsequently, fissionable cores, disregarding enduring these responses with any neutron, will split in a more prominent amount when neutrons are warm, while ripe neutrons, having high parting limits, will just parting with the quick ones.
Uranium is utilized as a fuel in an atomic reactor, being in its common structure in isotopes U-235 and U-238. The first is a fissionable component, and the subsequent one is prolific. While 97% of all splitting in a reactor is created by warm neutrons, U-238 can deliver Pu-239 through catch responses. This component goes into splitting along these lines to that of U-235, expanding the extent of partings. Thorium, a component that normally possesses large amounts of Nature, is exhibited as Thorium-232, which – through catch responses – produces uranium-233, utilized as a fissionable component in reactors.
The two prominent types of nuclear reactions are nuclear fission reactions and nuclear fusion reactions. When a single atomic nucleus is split into two lighter nuclei due to the action of an external source, the resulting nuclear reaction is known as a nuclear fission reaction. This type of nuclear reaction was first discovered by Fritz Strassmann and Otto Hahn, a group of German chemists. The nuclear fission that is undergone by the uranium-235 nucleus (a reaction from which energy is harnessed in almost all nuclear power plants) is a great example of a nuclear fission reaction.
When two relatively light atomic nuclei collide and fuse into a single nucleus, the resulting nuclear reaction is commonly referred to as a nuclear fusion reaction. An important example of a nuclear fusion reaction is the fusion of deuterium and tritium nuclei that results in the formation of a helium-4 nucleus and a neutron. This nuclear fusion reaction is what stars derive their energy from.
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