User:Theodulovski/sandbox

subcritical reactor are used in order of using nuclear waste as fuel. Use of thorium help not producing long life waste.

rubbiatron was the name given by some people to the prototype of such device.

one distinguish among the nuclear waste fission products from transuranian. fission products are the nuclei produced after fission of a fuel nuclei, almost all of them are of short life time. Transuranian resulte from the capture of neutrons by fuel nuclei. In the case of Uranium which consist mostly of element with mass number 238, neutron capture bring to the production of Plutonium with life time 24 million years, other transuranians are produced by more neutron capture, all are of long life time.

Use of Thorium instead of Uranium will not produce Transuranian since it would require 6 successive captures of neutron, which is improbable.

Thorium is however not fissionnable, by neutron capture it will produce Thorium 233 which after beta decay goes to Uranium 233 which is fissionnable. this process is called