What is radioactive waste
- how is radioactive waste made
- how is radioactive material made
- how is radioactive waste produced
- how is nuclear waste produced
Why is radioactive waste dangerous...
Radioactive waste is any waste that contains radioactive material.
Effects of radioactive waste on environmentRadioactive (or nuclear) waste is a by-product from nuclear reactors, fuel processing plants, hospitals, various industrial applications, and research facilities. Radioactive waste is hazardous to most forms of life and the environment and is regulated by government agencies to protect human health and the environment.
For radioactive waste, this means isolating or diluting it such that the rate or concentration of any radionuclides returned to the biosphere is harmless.
Time, in this case, plays a very important role since radioactivity naturally decays over time. The radioactive decay of a certain number of atoms (mass) is exponential in time. The rate of nuclear decay is also measured in terms of half-lives.
Radioactive waste examples in hospital
The half-life is the amount of time it takes for a given isotope to lose half of its radioactivity. If a radioisotope has a half-life of 14 days, half of its atoms will have decayed within 14 days. In 14 more days, half of that remaining half will decay, and so on.
Half-lives range from milli
- how is nuclear waste created from fission
- how much radioactive waste is produced