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Weapons grade plutonium


No fission products
have a half-life
in the range of
100–210 k years ...

... nor beyond 15.7 M years

Legend for superscript symbols
₡  has thermal neutron capture cross section in the range of 8–50 barns
ƒ  fissile
metastable isomer
№  naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM)
þ  neutron poison (thermal neutron capture cross section greater than 3k barns)
†  range 4–97 y: Medium-lived fission product
‡  over 200,000 y: Long-lived fission product

Weapons-grade nuclear material is any fissionable nuclear material that is pure enough to be used to make a nuclear weapon or has properties that make it particularly suitable for nuclear weapons use. Plutonium and uranium in grades normally used in nuclear weapons are the most common examples. (These nuclear materials have other categorizations based on their purity.)

Only fissile isotopes of certain elements have the potential for use in nuclear weapons. For such use, the concentration of fissile isotopes uranium-235 and plutonium-239 in the element used must be sufficiently high. Uranium from natural sources is enriched by isotope separation, and plutonium is produced in a suitable nuclear reactor.

Experiments have been conducted with uranium-233. Neptunium-237 and some isotopes of americium might be usable, but it is not clear that this has ever been implemented.


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Wikipedia

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