uranium-235

uranium-235 (U-235), radioactive isotope of the element uranium with a nucleus containing 92 protons and 143 neutrons. Uranium-235 is the only naturally occurring fissile material; that is, the uranium-235 nucleus undergoes nuclear fission when it collides with a slow neutron (a neutron with a kinetic energy less than 1 electron volt).

Uranium-235 constitutes about 0.72 percent of all naturally occurring uranium. (Most naturally occurring uranium is uranium-238.) It has a half-life of 704 million years, decaying to thorium-231, with the radioactive decay chain eventually ending in the stable isotope lead-207.

Uranium-235 must be separated from the more plentiful isotope uranium-238 for its various uses. Any of several methods—gaseous diffusion, gas centrifugation, liquid thermal diffusion—can be employed to separate and concentrate the fissile uranium-235 isotope into several grades, from low-enrichment (2 to 3 percent uranium-235) to fully enriched (97 to 99 percent uranium-235). Low-enrichment uranium is typically used as fuel for light-water nuclear reactors; fully enriched uranium is typically used for nuclear weapons.

Gases can diffuse through the small pores present in many materials. The diffusion proceeds in a random manner as gas molecules bounce off the walls of the porous medium. The average time a molecule of gas takes to traverse such a barrier depends on its velocity and certain other factors. According to the kinetic theory of gases, at a given temperature a lighter molecule will have a larger average velocity than a heavier one. This result provides the basis for a separation method. Natural uranium in the form of uranium hexafluoride (UF₆) gas is diffused from one compartment of a chamber to another through a porous barrier. Since the molecules of ²³⁵UF₆ travel at a higher velocity than those of ²³⁸UF₆, they pass into the second compartment more rapidly than the latter. Because the percentage of uranium-235 increases only slightly after traversal of the barrier, the process must be repeated hundreds of thousands of times to obtain the desired concentration of the isotope. This method was one of those used by the American Manhattan Project in World War II to make the uranium-235 for the first atomic bombs.

Because gaseous diffusion uses large amounts of energy, it has since been supplanted by isotope separation with centrifuges. The UF₆ gas is fed into a high-speed centrifuge. The centrifuge is balanced very well at the top and bottom and spins at an extremely high rate. Because of the relative centripetal forces that each atom experiences, the lighter species²³⁵UF₆ tends to concentrate near the centre of the spinning centrifuge, while the heavier ²³⁸UF₆ accumulates along the wall. These mixtures are then siphoned off.

Many isotopes of uranium can undergo fission, but uranium-235 undergoes fission more readily and emits more neutrons per fission than other such isotopes. When a neutron strikes the nucleus of an atom of the isotope uranium-235, it causes that nucleus to split into two fragments, each of which is a nucleus with about half the protons and neutrons of the original nucleus. In the process of splitting, a great amount of thermal energy, as well as gamma rays and two or more neutrons, is released. Under certain conditions, the escaping neutrons strike and thus fission more of the surrounding uranium nuclei, which then emit more neutrons that split still more nuclei. This series of rapidly multiplying fissions culminates in a chain reaction in which nearly all the fissionable material is consumed, in the process generating the explosion of what is known as an atomic bomb. When completely fissioned, 1 kg (2.2 pounds) of uranium-235 releases the energy equivalently produced by 17,000 tons, or 17 kilotons, of TNT. In a nuclear reactor the chain reaction is maintained at a controlled, nearly constant level. Nuclear reactors are so designed that they cannot explode like atomic bombs.