How transmutation works

Tuesday, May 9, 2000 | 5:12 a.m.

Transmutation, the process of transforming matter, is being talked about as an alternative to burying high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.

How the process, which reduces the radioactive life almost a hundredfold, works with plutonium:

1. A neutral particle of matter is shot at high speed from an accelerator.

2. The neutron hits highly radioactive plutonium 239 and converts it into a less dangerous form of plutonium.

3. The less dangerous plutonium breaks up to fission products, which are less radioactive still. Those products give off neutral particles called neutrons.

archive