Complete list of known fissionable materials?

[nammerkage1]

TL;DR Summary

I am looking but I could not find the complete list of fissionable and fissile isotopes. Do you know where I could look?

I am looking but I could not find the complete list of fissionable and fissile isotopes. Do you know where I could look?

 

[ohwilleke]

It would be helpful to know the purpose for which you want to use the list as that might shed some light upon which source would be best.

[Mentor Note: CRC Handbook link fixed below]

[Update: Questionable link to PDF replaced with an Amazon Books link]

Section 11 of the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics is the closest thing to a list like this that I can think of, although it may not be exactly what you are looking for. (The CRC Handbook is an ongoing project of the relevant departments of Case Western Reserve University in Northeast Ohio.) Section 11 starts at page 1895 in the linked pdf version and the cited references for its data that could also have some or all of what you are looking for.

Before the Internet, the CRC Handbook was the primary and leading general reference book for chemistry and physics, and it is still a leading one. But organizations like the Particle Data Group (which does not have what you are looking for) and various other online data collaborations have stolen some of its thunder.

There may be some online data collaboration with the data you are looking for, organized better or updated in real time, but if there is, I don't know which one has that data.

The International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) has a Table of Nuclides that might be of use to you (see also Wikipedia, explaining basic Table of Nuclides concepts).

The IUPAC Periodic Table of the Elements and Isotopes also might meet some of your needs although it is arranged hierarchically with entries for each periodic table element, rather than in one single list of isotopes, and you'd have to compile your list by looking at each individual element entry.

The CRC Handbook's list compiles experimental data on isotopes actually studied, and isn't necessarily a compendium of all possible fissionable isotopes. A truly complete list, in that sense, does not exist.

There are all sorts of theoretically possible isotopes whose properties are not know. At this point, theory is, at best, merely a pointer towards properties that isotopes are likely to have, rather than a reliable and certain indicator of their properties. This is because determining the properties of an isotope of any complexity from first principles is beyond our current computational capacity.

The CRC Handbook is not updated in real time, so it is only current through the published literature cutoff for the current edition. As the fact that this is the 95th edition suggests, however, it is updated frequently.

You'd have to check arXiv (primarily in the nuclear experiment category, but possibly also in the nuclear theory category), or something similar, for any discoveries of isotopes that belong in the list that are made after that cutoff date. All or almost all compiled lists would ultimately have multiple papers that have preprints in the relevant arXiv categories as the sources for their data.

Fissile materials, depending on the definition you are using, should include all entries in the table of isotopes of Section 11 of the CRC Handbook with a half-life. I'm not sure that it captures all known fissionable materials, however, a distinction explained here:

A nuclide that is capable of undergoing fission after capturing either high-energy (fast) neutrons or low-energy thermal (slow) neutrons. Although formerly used as a synonym for fissile material, fissionable materials also include those (such as uranium-238) that can be fissioned only with high-energy neutrons. As a result, fissile materials (such as uranium-235) are a subset of fissionable materials.

Uranium-235 fissions with low-energy thermal neutrons because the binding energy resulting from the absorption of a neutron is greater than the critical energy required for fission; therefore uranium-235 is a fissile material. By contrast, the binding energy released by uranium-238 absorbing a thermal neutron is less than the critical energy, so the neutron must possess additional energy for fission to be possible. Consequently, uranium-238 is a fissionable material.

This table of isotopes at Section 11 of the CRC Handbook, and data on isotope properties elsewhere in the CRC Handbook, however, might help you identify the isotopes that you are looking for. This might be a less straightforward way to compile this list, that requires more work, but it still gives you a fairly bounded set of isotopes to consider.

If you want an explanation with more hand holding, Wikipedia lists many of the more notable examples and also explains the existing rules of thumb for predicting which isotopes are fissionable such as the "Ronen Fissile rule."

Oak Ridge National Labs (a U.S. nuclear research facility in Tennessee) also has a publication (Number 52057), published in the year 2014, which lists, describes, and discusses in context, a lot of fissile and fissionable materials of practical importance in modern nuclear fission physics, but doesn't purport to be comprehensive.

 

[nammerkage1]

Thanks for the help! I really appreciate your comprehensive answer.
I am working on some visuals to tech nuclear physics. For this, I've made a Segre Chart in Manim/python, and I would love to be able to highlight all of the isotopes that are known to have induced-fission property. I really just need one big list like
- U235
-Pu239

But I might be able to construct this list from the sources you have provided. Thanks.

 

[snorkack]

How do you define and delimit "fissionable" and "fissile" for your purposes?

 

[gmax137]

Section 11 of the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics (95th edition) is the closest thing to a list like this that I can think of, although it may not be exactly what you are looking for.

The link is not working for me.

 

[berkeman]

The link is not working for me.

Yeah, it has some strange phrase before the actual link. Try this:

[Questionable link to PDF removed]

 

[ohwilleke]

Yeah, it has some strange phrase before the actual link. Try this:[Questionable link to PDF removed]

Thanks. I tried to fix the link in my post after this problem was pointed out, but couldn't figure out how to do it.

 

[berkeman]

Thanks. I tried to fix the link in my post after this problem was pointed out, but couldn't figure out how to do it.

I think I fixed it now. Long download!

 

[gmax137]

Thanks @ohwilleke and @berkeman !

 

[berkeman]

Thanks. I tried to fix the link in my post after this problem was pointed out, but couldn't figure out how to do it.

BTW, is that a legal copy of the book?

 

[gmax137]

BTW, is that a legal copy of the book?

Good question.

the linked site is in Brazil, edisciplinas dot usp dot br... and my browser asked me if I wanted a translation from Portuguese.

 

[berkeman]

BTW, is that a legal copy of the book?

After review, it looks like that is not a legal copy of the book, so it has been replaced by a link to the Amazon Books website.

 

[snorkack]

How do you define and delimit "fissionable" and "fissile" for your purposes?

For options, see
https://ncsp.llnl.gov/sites/ncsp/files/2021-05/LA_UR_04_6514.pdf

 

[ohwilleke]

For options, see
https://ncsp.llnl.gov/sites/ncsp/files/2021-05/LA_UR_04_6514.pdf

If you're linking to that, you just have to include the quote from the cover page:

The publication then takes 82 pdf pages to discuss the meanings of the respective words as they have evolved and shifted over time.

 

[snorkack]

If you're linking to that, you just have to include the quote from the cover page:

The publication then takes 82 pdf pages to discuss the meanings of the respective words as they have evolved and shifted over time.

What I would rather include - page 7 of pdf/vii:

In reviewing this usage, it will become apparent to the reader that there
is no clear-cut consensus on the meaning of these words and in some
cases, the usage is quite disparate, even though there appears to be
general agreement that fissionable is less restrictive than fissile. The
purpose of this report is to provide the reader a comprehensive survey
of relevant publications in order to dispel the common perception that
the words are assumed to have a standard definition that is shared by
everyone else.

The words don´t seem to have had a commonly shared definition at any one time. The examples include many partial list directly contradicting each other. The authors also critizise the examples with arguments and counterexamples.