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Samarium-151



Medium-lived
fission products
t½(y)Yield%KeVβ
155Eu4.76.0330252γ
85Kr10.76.2717687γ
113mCd14.1.0003316
90Sr28.95.75182826β
137Cs30.236.08991176γ
121mSn43.9.00003390γ
151Sm90.420377
Long-lived
fission products
t½(my)Yield%KeVβ
99Tc.2116.0507294
126Sn.230.02364050γ
79Se.295.0508151
93Zr1.536.295691γ
135Cs2.3 6.3333269
107Pd6.5 .162933
129I15.7 .6576194γ

151Sm is an radioisotope of samarium with a halflife of 90 years, decaying with low-energy beta emission, and a fission product yield of 0.4203%, about 39% of Sm-149's yield.

Its neutron absorption cross section is high at 15200 Barn (unit)s, about 38% of samarium-149's absorption cross section. Since the percentages are almost equal, the two isotopes should reach similar equilibrium concentrations. Since 149Sm reaches equilibrium in about 500 hours (20 days), 151Sm should reach equilibrium in about 50 days.

Since nuclear fuel is used for several years in a power reactor, (burnup) the final amount of 151Sm in the spent nuclear fuel at discharge may be only a fraction of the total 151Sm produced during the use of the fuel. This and the isotope's low-level radioactivity mean that Sm-151 has insignificant nuclear waste impact compared to the two main medium-lived fission products Cs-137 and Sr-90.

See also

 
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Samarium-151". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.
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