XVII Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2025

Introduction

In modern realities, people need a lot of electrical energy. It is obtained at thermal power plants, hydroelectric power plants and thermal power plants, as well as from renewable sources (solar energy or wind energy). The most effective of the presented energy sources is the combustion of organic fuel at GRES, about 60% world energy production, but natural gas, coal, peat and other suitable resources on Earth are limited, and the operation of the power plant has a negative impact on the environmental situation, it is necessary to develop other ways of obtaining energy and nuclear energy is well suited for this.

Unlike energy production methods using finite natural resources, nuclear energy is based on thermal energy obtained through a controlled nuclear fission reaction and has virtually no resource limitations, and also has enormous potential for development and is quite capable of surpassing other types of energy production even before the depletion of natural resources and providing humanity with energy in the future.

Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Fuel

Nuclear energy is another branch of energy that produces electrical and thermal energy by converting the energy of atomic nuclei. Nuclear energy accounts for approximately 22% of all energy produced in the world.

Nuclear energy is usually generated by a chain reaction of fission of nuclei of plutonium-239 or uranium-235, using complex production of special nuclear fuel. The nuclei are fissioned when a neutron hits them, producing new neutrons and fission fragments. Fission neutrons and fission fragments have high kinetic energy. As a result of collisions of the fragments with other atoms, this kinetic energy is quickly converted into heat.

The uranium isotopeU - 235is a naturalnuclearfuelcapable of splittingneutronsandsupportingchainreactions,soitcan be considered a nuclearfuelthatwillpower a nuclearreactor.Innaturaluranium, the content of the U-235isotopeisonly0.7%, the rest of the U-238isotopeis99,3%.Therefore, tobegin with, it is enriched,pressedandsinteredintotablets,adding the necessarycomponentsandobtaining fuel rodsfromwhichfuel assemblies (fuelassemblies) are assembled.

Specialtransportcontainers have been developedfor the transportation of fuel assemblies from the manufacturingplant to thenuclear power plant.Containerdesigners have provided for allpossibleaccidentsthatmayoccurduringtransportation.Freshfuelinfuel assemblies has a fairlylownaturalradioactivity,humanexposureandpollution of the area have not been establishedevenin case of accidents.If the reactorcore is fullyloaded,thetotalmass of fuelwillbe80tons.

Aspecialsafetysystem is in place for the transportationandstorage of fuelat the.Alloperations are carried out in a specialbuilding.Todeliverfuel assemblies to thereactorcompartment,it is packedincasesandplacedonspecialplatforms.Sincethespentfuel is radioactive,it is movedunder a layer of wateron a transshipmentmachine,andstoredinpools,under a protectivelayer of waterwith a solution of boricacid.Thenitgetsto the fuelregenerationplantin a specialtrain,andafteritsprocessing it will be usedagain.

Fuelisexported by a specialtrain,whichincludesseveralwagonunitswithshippingcontainers.Spentfuelisavaluableraw material, as aresultofwhich the vast majority of the allocatedelementswill be reused,and the volume of radioactivewaste will be significantlyreduced. Of course, in order tocomply with safetystandards, alloperationswithburnt-out fuel assemblies,includingloading of shippingcontainers, are carried out onlyunder a protectivelayer of waterin the holdingpool.

Nuclearreactor

Eachnuclear power plantuses a nuclearreactor as thebasis of itsoperation.There are differenttypes of reactors, the maindifferencesinwhich are due to the fuelusedand the coolantusedtomaintain the desiredcoretemperature,and the moderatorusedtoreduce the rate of neutronsreleased as aresult of nuclear decay,tomaintain the desiredspeed of the chainreactionandensure the requiredlevel of safety.

The mostcommontypeis a light-water reactorusingenricheduraniumasfuel, which usesordinarywater, the so-called"light",asboth a coolantand a moderator. A gas-cooled nuclearreactorwith a graphitemoderatorhas become widespreaddue to the ability to efficientlyproduceweapons-grade plutoniumand the ability to useunenricheduranium.A heavy-water reactorusesheavywaterasboth a coolantand a moderator,and the fuelisunenricheduranium, which is usedmainlyinCanada, which has its ownuraniumoredeposits.

Theworld's firstnuclearreactorwasbuiltandlaunchedinDecember1942in the USAunder the leadership of E.Fermi.InEurope, the firstnuclearreactorwastheF-1 plant, which started operating on December25, 1946inMoscowunder the leadership of IgorVasilyevichKurchatov.Figure1shows the VVRE-1000reactor(a water-to-waterpowerreactorwith a nominalcapacity of 1000MW)developedin the USSR.

Thermonuclearenergy

The development of nuclearenergyideasusingotherfuelresourcesandtechnologicalprocesses that make it possible to synthesizeheavieratomicnucleifromlighter ones in order to generateenergy.Atthemoment, the creation of permanentthermonuclearreactorsforindustrialandcivilneedsis an engineeringandtechnologicalproblem,but the physics of the process is welldescribed by manyscientistsand the creation of a workingmodelis a matter of time.

The physics of the processis as follows: atomicnucleiconsistoftwotypes of nucleons-protonsandneutrons.They are heldtogether by the so-calledstronginteraction.Inthis case, the binding energyofeachnucleonto the othersdependson the totalnumber of nucleonsin the nucleus,asshown in thegraph.Thegraphshowsthat in lightnuclei, the binding energyincreaseswith an increase in the number of nucleons,while in heavy nuclei it decreases.Ifslopes are addedtolightnucleiornucleons are removedfromheavyatoms,thisdifferencein binding energywill be releasedas t he differencebetween the costofthereactionand the kineticenergy of the releasedparticles.

Fig. 1. VVRE-1000.

Protonsin the nucleushave an electriccharge,whichmeans they experienceCoulombrepulsion.In the nucleus, thisrepulsion is compensated by the stronginteraction that holds the nucleonstogether.But the overcomingCoulombrepulsion.Deuterium(2H)andtritium(3H) will be used asfuelin the mainreactionsthat are planned to beusedforcontrolledthermonuclearfusion,andin the longerterm, helium-3(3He)andboron-11(11B) will be used.

Coldnuclearfusion

Coldnuclear synthesis is the proposedpossibility of carrying out a nuclearfusionreactioninchemical(atomic-molecular)systemswithoutsignificantheating of the workingsubstance.Knownnuclearfusionreactions—thermonuclearreactions— take placeinplasmaattemperaturesofmillions of kelvin.Such a synthesiscan be performedbypointheating of a singleparticle of matterusinglaserinstallations,poloidalandtoroidalarrays of magneticprobes, a laserradiationtrap, a vacuumpumpingsystemandmanyothertechniques.This will requirehighaccuracy, because the permissibleerrorsforhitting a laserare ten thousandthsof the size of an atomandthousandths of a second.

Fig.2andFig.3.Stainlesssteelplates.

Is the proposedpossibility of carrying out a nuclearfusionreactioninchemical(atomic-molecular) systems. There is a theoryabout the possibility of coldnuclearfusionunderconditions of electrolysison a palladiumelectrode- electrochemically inducednuclearsynthesis(conversion of deuteriumintotritiumorhelium).StudentDmitryE.Strebkovexperimentallycreated a simpleelectrolyzerforproducinghydrogenfromwater,which,inhisopinion,can be usedinfuturethermonuclearreactorsas an energysourceforthermonuclearfusion.

Experiment

Toproducehydrogenfromwater, we will need an electrolyzer. An electrolyzeris a deviceforseparatingwaterintooxygenandhydrogen,resulting in the formation of a mixture of gasescalled“explosivegas".Explosivegas is knownas the mostexplosivegasin the world,therefore, due to itsdetonation, a largerelease of energyoccurs.

6stainlesssteelplatesweremade(Fig.2and3),theyareelectrodes.In an electrolyzer, the platescan be connectedbothalong the firstandlastplates, in which casealot of electricity is required,andthrough the plate,in which case a carbattery will be enoughtopower it.After that,housingsweremadeforplatesconnectedto the minusandconnectedto the plus. The plateswereinstalledinhousings that had no bottomandprovidedwateraccessto the electrodes,andsolderedto the wires(Figure 4). Hydrogen escapes from the bodywithplatesconnectedto the minus, and oxygenfrom the plus,therebysolving the problem of separatingexplosivegasintohydrogenandoxygen.

Fig.4andFig.5.Electrodesin a plasticcase.

Bothelectrodes are placedin a singleplastichousing(Fig.5).Fill it with water. We passelectriccurrentfrom the carbattery. We collect the releasedhydrogenin an additionalcontainer.

Conclusion

Thepaperanalyzespromisingareas of nuclearenergy. An electrolyzer cell, oneof the most importantdevicesneededtogenerateenergythroughcoldfusion, has been assembledandtested.Hydrogen was obtainedbywaterelectrolysis.However, it has not yetbeenpossible to estimate the amount of deuteriuminthehydrogen produced by the meansavailabletotheauthor.

Literature

1. Nuclear power/ MaterialfromWikipedia, the freeencyclopedia/https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear power

2.Bauman Moscow State Technical University.Lecture24.Radioactivity.ttp://fn.bmstu.ru/files/FN4/lec_4sem/4sem_lec_24.pdf

3.Nuclearfuelhttps://aem-group.ru/mediacenter/informatoriy/yadernoe-toplivo.html

4.Safety of thermonuclearfusionhttps://www.iaea.org/ru/energiya-termoyadernogo-sinteza/bezopasnost

5.Waterrectificationas a method of hydrogenandoxygenisotopeseparation: current stateandprospects.E.P.Magomedbekov,I.L.Rastunova,N.N.Kulov/https://sciencejournals.ru/view-article/?j=toht&y=2021&v=55&n=1&a=TOHT2101009Magomedbekov

6.Girdler sulfide process-Girdlersulfideprocess/ MaterialfromWikipedia, the freeencyclopedia/https://wiki5.ru/wiki/Girdler_sulfide_process

7.Textbook of physics for grades10-11 by N.I.Vorontsova,M.I.Delov,K.V.Klygina,V.V.Kondakov,Yu. A.Panebrattsev,N.E.Sidorov,P.G.Struchalin,G.V.Tikhomirov