Dicurium-244 trioxide (aka, CURIUM-244 OXIDE or Cm_2O_3) is available for a radi

Question

Dicurium-244 trioxide (aka, CURIUM-244 OXIDE or Cm_2O_3) is available for a radiosotope-based, thermoelectric generator. (Recall that oxygen atomic mass is 16 AMU.) A) What type of decay process does the Cm nuclei undergo? B) How much energy in eV is released when a Cm nuclei decays that is useful to an engineer who is trying to develop a radioisotope-based power generation system? C) What Cm_2O_3 initial mass is needed to produce a thermal power of 5 kW at 20 years after the Cm_2O_3 material is used to form a pile? D) What would the thermal power of the Cm_2O_3 pile be after 36 years?

Explanation / Answer

(A) 96Cm244 convetrs to daughter nuclei 94Pu240.Here mass number and atomic number both has been changed.So, it's a process of decay.

(B)Here mass number has been changed 4.

For 1 AMU conversion energy releases 931.5MeV

Therefore,for 4 AMU conversion energy will be released =4*931.5MeV=3,727.2MeV.

(C)1AMU Conversion 1.4924*10-10Joule.

For per nucleion to produce 5kw energy.Cm required 837.58*1010AMU

Since a=a0e-kt

From the above euation it is calculated that initially Cm is required 1809.1728*107Kg/Sec required.

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