The Advancement of Nuclear Science Over the Last 100 Years

Name: Course Code: Date: The Advancement of Nuclear Science Over the Last 100 Years Introduction In 1789, Martin Klaprot discovered Uranium and named it after Uranus, the planet. A century passed without much development or discovery of radioactive elements. By 1895, Wilhelm Rontgen discovered ionizing radiation by passing an electric current through the evacuated glass tube to produce X-rays. 1896, Henri Becquerel found that radium and uranium ore caused the photographic plate to darken and attributed this phenomenon to radiation of beta and alpha particles emission. By the turn of the century, early applications of the discovery of the potential of radioactive materials were used in preserving food as Samuel Prescott demonstrated in 1898. However, despite a slow start at the turn of the 20th century, research intensified during the world war II which birthed atomic bombs and fast-tracked the knowledge of nuclear power and its subsequent application in other non-military fields. Today, the technology has had an immeasurable impact in mining, cosmology, hydrology, archeology, medicine among other fields. Early 20th century The race was on to expand the utility of these new elements that had ‘radioactive’ properties. As scientists continued to experiment with the radioactive elements, earnest Rutherford discovered that radioactivity entailed spontaneous events that emitted alpha and beta particles from the nucleus creating the different element. In 1911, Frederick Soddy discovered that radioactive elements had different isotopes. In 1938, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman demonstrated nuclear fission of uranium which created new lighter elements. In 1939, Lise Meitner, Neils Bohr and Otto Frisch explained the phenomenon by suggesting that the nucleus captured the neutron causing severe vibration leading to fission. They noted that the vibration did not necessarily create two equal parts but they calculated that the energy released by the fission process was about 200million electron volts CITATION Sch18 \l 1033 (SchiHi.org). This was a turning point in the understanding of the properties of radioactive elements and paved a new way for the likely application of such energies if they were harnessed in a controlled manner. According to CITATION Wor19 \l 1033 (World Nuclear Association),’ Hahn and Strassmann showed that fission not only released a lot of energy but that it also released additional neutrons which could cause fission in other uranium nuclei and possibly a self-sustaining chain reaction leading to an enormous release of energy.’ Bohr discovered that the U-235 isotope was more likely to undergo nuclear fission that the U-238 isotope. He also discovered that the fast-moving neutrons were less likely to initiate nuclear fission that slow-moving neutrons. This knowledge prompted Szilard and Fermi to further the research which led them to find out that a moderator can be introduced to slow down emission of neutrons. Due to the volatility of the U-235 isotope of uranium, most ‘uranium’ showed that they comprised of about 0.7% of the U-235 isotope natural uranium and 99.3% U-238 isotope. Scientists attempted to ‘purify’ the uranium to have only the U-235 isotope. The process was later known as enrichment which entails increasing the proportion of U-235 isotope. Francis Perin sought to find out how to create a self-sustaining release of energy in radioactive elements. He introduced the concept of critical mass and in theory, he demonstrated that uranium can produce energy in a self-sustaining reaction cycle. The chain reaction could be sustained by mixing uranium with water to slow down the neutrons and by injecting external neutrons into the system. The injection of the externally introduced neutrons and neutron absorbing material to limit the multiplication of neutrons completed the puzzle of how to control nuclear reaction. Nuclear power stations operate by this principle to control the energy produced while nuclear warheads are structured to create ‘uncontrolled’ fission cycle simultaneously by controlling the variables in the nuclear fission process. During World War II This discovery of the energy potential and capacity of radioactive elements prompted governments to fund scientists to weaponizing them. It was the onset of the world war II and military departments started an arms race to weaponize radioactive elements. The research that went into trying to weaponize radioactive elements led to a better understanding of the elements, their potential applications and weapons of mass destruction. Peierls and Frisch moved to Britain where they birthed the concept of an atomic bomb in their Frisch-Peierls Memorandum CITATION Jer11 \l 1033 (Bernstein). They claimed that 5kg of Uranium could produce the energy of several thousand tons of dynamite. At the time, dynamite was the most ‘explosive’ substance and this gave their three-paged article perspective of the application of that energy in war. They added that the radiation effects could also add to the damage of the explosion hence adding to its destructive power. Their article also detailed how such a bomb could be detonated and how Uranium could be enriched using thermal diffusion to enrich it with U-235 isotope. The Frisch-Peierls Memorandum generated a considerable response and prompted British universities to attempt to prove these concepts. Researchers at Cambridge proved that a chain reaction could be sustained with slow neutrons in a mixture of uranium oxide and heavy water, ie. The output of neutrons was greater than the input CITATION Wor19 \l 1033 (World Nuclear Association). They also demonstrated that U-235 isotope was more likely to absorb slow-moving neutrons than U-238 isotope. They showed that the U-238 isotope was likely to form a new isotope U-239 with an atomic number of 93 after emitting an electron. The U-239 isotope can also emit another electron and become another element with atomic number 94 and a mass of 239. In March 1940, the MAUD committee confirmed that Peierls and Frisch’s theory on using U-235 to create an atomic bomb was feasible. Various scientists concluded that the U-235 isotope would result in fission if it collided ...