Uranium-236 - Contribution To Radioactivity of Reprocessed Uranium

Contribution To Radioactivity of Reprocessed Uranium

U-238's halflife is about 190 times as long as U-236; therefore U-236 should have about 190 times as much specific activity. That is, in reprocessed uranium with 0.5% U-236, the U-236 and U-238 will produce about the same level of radioactivity. (U-235 contributes only a few percent.)

The ratio is less than 190 when the decay products of each are included. U-238's decay chain to uranium-234 and eventually lead-206 involves emission of eight alpha particles in a time (hundreds of thousands of years) short compared to the halflife of U-238, so that a sample of U-238 in equilibrium with its decay products (as in natural uranium ore) will have eight times the alpha activity of U-238 alone. Even purified natural uranium where the post-uranium decay products have been removed will contain an equilibrium quantity of U-234 and therefore about twice the alpha activity of pure U-238. Enrichment to increase U-235 content will increase U-234 to an even greater degree, and roughly half of this U-234 will survive in the spent fuel. On the other hand, U-236 decays to thorium-232 which has a halflife of 14 billion years, equivalent to a decay rate only 31.4% as great as that of U-238.