Question

what is nuclear fission

Answer 1

In a process called nuclear fission,

the nucleus of a heavy atom (such as uranium, plutonium or thorium),

when bombarded with low-energy neutrons, can be split apart into lighter

nuclei. When this is done, a tremendous amount of energy is released if

the mass of the original nucleus is just a little more than the sum of the

masses of the individual products. The fission of an atom of uranium,

for example, produces 10 million times the energy produced by the

combustion of an atom of carbon from coal. In a nuclear reactor designed

for electric power generation, such nuclear ‘fuel’ can be part of a selfsustaining

fission chain reaction that releases energy at a controlled

rate. The released energy can be used to produce steam and further

generate electricity. Do You Know?

In a nuclear fission, the difference in mass, Δm, between the original nucleus and the

product nuclei gets converted to energy E at a rate governed by the famous equation,

E = Δm c2,

first derived by Albert Einstein in 1905, where c is the speed of light in vacuum. In

nuclear science, energy is often expressed in units of electron volts (eV): 1 eV = 1.602

× 10–19 joules. It is easy to check from the above equation that 1 atomic mass unit (u)

is equivalent to about 931 mega electron volts (MeV) of energy.

252 Science

The major hazard of nuclear power generation is the storage and

disposal of spent or used fuels – the uranium still decaying into harmful

subatomic particles (radiations). Improper nuclear-waste storage and

disposal result in environmental contamination. Further, there is a risk

of accidental leakage of nuclear radiation. The high cost of installation

of a nuclear power plant, high risk of environmental contamination and

limited availability of uranium makes large-scale use of nuclear energy

prohibitive.

Nuclear energy was first used for destructive purposes before nuclear

power stations were designed. The fundamental physics of the fission

chain reaction in a nuclear weapon is similar to the physics of a controlled

nuclear reactor, but the two types of device are engineered quite

differently.

Answer 2

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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. ..

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