Why do we use fission

For some reason I decide to split this money two separate accounts. Yes, I am missing 2 dollars! But maybe in exchange for this missing 2 dollars, I get a whole bunch of energy.

That might be ok. This is exactly what happens with nuclear fission fission means to break apart. If you looked at an atom, you would find it has three things: electrons, protons, and neutrons OK, hydrogen doesn't have any neutrons. The number of protons in the nucleus tells you what element the atom is nitrogen has 7 protons, silver has 47 protons.

Then there is the atomic number atomic mass number. This tells you how many protons plus neutrons the atom has. Oh, one more fact for the next time you are at a party. If two atoms have the same number of protons, but different numbers of neutronsthese are isotopes like hydrogen-1 and hydrogen But back to fission.

Here is the crazy part. If you break uranium into two pieces, you get krypton, barium plus two extra neutrons. OK, that isn't crazy since all the protons and neutrons are accounted for. If you find the mass of the original uranium and the mass of all the pieces, you will find that you are missing some mass. The stuff before has a greater mass than the stuff after. That's a little crazy. It's like spitting 2 million dollars and ending up 2 dollars short. But that energy isn't really lostit was just converted into other forms of energy.

Yes, we can consider mass to be a kind of energy. This is where that famous equation comes into play. In this expression, E is the equivalent energy, m is the mass of the particle and c is a constant that happens to be the speed of light with a value of 2.

The key to why some atoms split and release energy while others fuse to do the same lies in how tightly the protons and neutrons are held together. If a nuclear reaction produces nuclei that are more tightly bound than the originals then energy will be produced by fusion, and for fission the opposite is true. It turns out that the most tightly bound atomic nuclei are around the size of iron, which has 26 protons in the nucleus.

So, one can release energy either by splitting very large nuclei, like uranium with 92 protons, to get smaller products, or fusing very light nuclei, like hydrogen , with just one proton to get bigger products. The Fusion in Europe newsletter delivers news and views on the progress of fusion research directly to your inbox. Research for tomorrow's energy supply. Home Fusion Fusion vs Fission. These neutrons are accelerated and then slammed into the unstable isotope, causing it to fission, or break into smaller particles.

During the process, a neutron is accelerated and strikes the target nucleus, which in the majority of nuclear power reactors today is Uranium This splits the target nucleus and breaks it down into two smaller isotopes the fission products , three high-speed neutrons, and a large amount of energy.

This resulting energy is then used to heat water in nuclear reactors and ultimately produces electricity. The high-speed neutrons that are ejected become projectiles that initiate other fission reactions, or chain reactions.

Conversely, fusion takes place when two low-mass isotopes, typically isotopes of hydrogen, unite under conditions of extreme pressure and temperature. Atoms of Tritium and Deuterium isotopes of hydrogen, Hydrogen-3 and Hydrogen-2, respectively unite under extreme pressure and temperature to produce a neutron and a helium isotope.

Along with this, an enormous amount of energy is released, which is several times the amount produced from fission. While fission is used in nuclear power reactors since it can be controlled, fusion is not yet utilized to produce power. Some scientists believe there are opportunities to do so.

Fusion offers an appealing opportunity, since fusion creates less radioactive material than fission and has a nearly unlimited fuel supply.