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( Spent nuclear fuel)
Spent nuclear fuel, occasionally called used nuclear fuel, is nuclear fuel that has been irradiated in a nuclear reactor (usually at a nuclear power plant) to the point where it is no longer useful in sustaining a nuclear reaction. Alternatively, the intact spent fuel can be disposed as radioactive waste. The US is currently planning disposal in deep geological formations, such as Yucca Mountain, where it has to be shielded and packaged to prevent its migration to mankind's immediate environment for thousands if not millions of years.[1] Large John H Radioactive Decay Characteristics of Irradiated Nuclear Fuels, January 2006.[1] Spent low enriched uranium nuclear fuel is an example of a nanomaterial which existed before the term nano became fashionable. In the oxide fuel intense temperature gradients exist which cause fission products to migrate. The zirconium tends to move to the centre of the fuel pellet where the temperature is highest while the lower boiling fission products move to the edge of the pellet. The pellet is likely to contain lots of small bubble like pores which form during use, the fission xenon migrates to these voids. Some of this xenon will then decay to form caesium, hence many of these bubbles contain a lot of 137Cs.
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