![]() The barium and krypton nuclei are more tightly bound than the original uranium nucleus.Įqually, in the fusion reaction where two heavy hydrogen nuclei combine to form a helium nucleus, the helium nucleus is more tightly bound than the heavy hydrogen nuclei. Take a typical fission reaction used in nuclear power generation, where a uranium nucleus splits into barium and krypton nuclei. with lower binding energy per neutron or proton – then it releases energy. If a nuclear reaction produces nuclei that are more tightly bound than the originals – i.e. And this is different in differently-sized nuclei.Īnd there is a very simple rule in nuclear physics: In a sense it is a measure of how tightly bound a nucleus is – the less binding energy per proton or neutron in the nucleus, the more tightly bound the nucleus. Nuclear binding energy is the energy you would have to put in to completely split a nucleus up into its component protons and neutrons. This begins to make sense when we look into how binding energy works in nuclei. One puzzling question that often arises when trying to understand the difference between fission and fusion is, if splitting a nucleus releases energy, then how can combining two nuclei also release energy? How can both splitting and combining nuclei release energy? While the energy released by splitting one uranium atom is millions of times more than the amount of energy released in burning an atom of carbon, the energy released in a fusion reaction is even greater.Fission as a means of producing power uses uranium as the primary fuel, of which there is a large but limited supply, whereas fusion, when the technology becomes viable, is likely to use heavy hydrogen, which is abundant.(However, one way to produce a fusion reaction uses a fission ‘trigger’, and that does produce radioactive substances.) Fission produces many highly radioactive products with a long half life, whereas fusion does not. ![]() Fission is used in nuclear reactors to produce electricity, whereas fusion is still at the experimental stage. ![]() Fission does not usually occur in nature, whereas fusion occurs in stars like our sun.To produce a fission reaction you need a critical mass of the starting substance plus high-speed neutrons, whereas to produce a fusion reaction you need very high temperatures and high density of the starting substance.Fission starts with a large nucleus and finishes with two smaller ones, whereas fusion starts with two small nuclei and ends with a larger one.Differences between nuclear fission and nuclear fusion However, many scientists believe it is only a matter of time before we overcome the barriers to creating viable fusion technology for energy production, and when that time comes, fusion will offer many advantages over fission, for instance it creates less radioactive products, and uses a virtually unlimited fuel supply – heavy hydrogen, which is abundant in seawater. Our sun is a giant fusion reactor: every second it transforms 600 million tons of hydrogen into helium. Simply put, nuclear fission is where the nucleus of a heavy atom splits into two lighter ones, and fusion is where two light nuclei combine to form a bigger one.įission is the process currently used in nuclear reactors to make electricity, while fusion is still at the experimental stage – with international teams working hard to find ways to control the reaction in a contained space. However apart from this similarity, these reactions are very different. ![]() In both reactions some mass is lost and converted to energy according to Einstein’s famous e=mc² equation. Nuclear fission and nuclear fusion are two different reactions that release vast amounts of energy locked in the nuclei of atoms.
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