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2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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Surplus plutonium for power reactor fuel: What’s on offer
The Department of Energy has a plan for private companies to “dispose of surplus plutonium”—about 19.7 metric tons in both oxide and metal forms—by “making the materials available for advanced nuclear technologies.” A Surplus Plutonium Utilization Program request for applications (RFA) issued October 21 describes the plutonium on offer, and the “thresholds” prospective applicants must meet.
Mojtaba Taherzadeh
Nuclear Technology | Volume 18 | Number 1 | April 1973 | Pages 15-24
Technical Paper | Instrument | doi.org/10.13182/NT73-A16103
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The response of a 300-µm-thick silicon detector to an incident polyenergetic neutron beam has been evaluated by the use of analytical techniques. The analysis indicates that for neutrons <6 MeV the response of a 300-µm silicon detector to neutrons emanating from a plutonium dioxide (RTG) heat source is basically due to elastic scattering reactions and the contribution from other reactions, i.e., (n,p) and (n,α), is <2%. The contribution from radiative reactions, i.e., (n,γ) and (n,n′γ), is even smaller and therefore is ignored. For neutron energies up to 6 MeV, the maximum response for a 300-µm silicon detector is <4 × 10−3 counts/n within the range of bias energies 25 to 250 keV. If the effects of pulse height defect and the true angular distribution of scattered neutrons are included, the response will be reduced to 1.3 × 10−3 counts/n.