

This is 0.7MeV for fission and 6.2MeV for fusion so it is obvious that fusion is the more effective nuclear reaction.

However, the energy per unit mass is more relevant. So it is easy to see that fusion reactions give out more energy per reaction. Considering the mass of the four protons/hydrogen nuclei (4.029106u) and the mass of the Helium produced (4.002603u) we get a mass difference of 0.026503u or 24.69MeV. The energy released in this nuclear reaction is more than 100,000 times greater than that of a typical chemical reaction, even though the decay of 14 C is a relatively low-energy nuclear reaction. Finally two Helium-3s fuse forming a Helium nucleus and two hydron nuclei. Hydrogen, heated to very high temperatures. Then the deuterium fuses with another hydrogen to form Helium-3 and a photon of energy. Fusion powers the Sun and stars as hydrogen atoms fuse together to form helium, and matter is converted into energy. There are two methods of doing this: fission and fusion.

ENERGY RELEASED FUSION VS FISSION FREE
Releasing this energy would free the world from having to use fossil fuels. In a fusion reaction firstly two hydrogens fuse to form a deuterium (an isotope of hydrogen with nucleon no 2), a positron and an electron neutrino. The nuclei of atoms contain a large amount of energy. Now looking at the graph the binding energy per nucleon for Uranium is about 7.6MeV and for Barium around 8.3 giving an increase in binding energy during fission of about 0.7MeV per nucleon, or a total of 164.5MeV in total. An example of fission is when a Uranium-235 atom is split by a neutron into a Barium-144 atom, a Krypton-89 atom and three neutrons. To answer this you need to look at the binding energy per nucleon graph as follows: Fusion releases the energy of the strong force (much stronger at short distances than the EM force) when the small pieces are captured and held into one nucleus.īill Baird, Ph.D., Postdoc, College of Charleston, SC The energy per event is greater (in these examples) in fission, but the energy per nucleon (fusion = about 7 MeV/nucleon, fission = about 1 Mev/nucleon) is much greater in fusion.įission releases the energy of the electromagnetic force when positively charged parts of the nucleus fly away from one another. The energy released when 4 Hydrogen nuclei (= protons) fuse (there are some decays involved as well) into a Helium nucleus is around 27 Million Electron Volts (MeV), or about 7 MeV per nucleon.įor fission of U or P, energies released are around 200 MeV or so. Fusion systems would generate electricity from the energy released when hydrogen atoms are combined to form helium current nuclear reactors use the splitting, or fission, of uranium atoms.
ENERGY RELEASED FUSION VS FISSION LICENSE
Fusion only produces more energy than it consumes in small nuclei (in stars, Hydrogen & its isotopes fusing into Helium). expanding materials license guidance to cover fusion systems nationwide. Why does the nuclear fusion reaction yield more energy than the nuclear fission reaction?įission only produces more energy than it consumes in large nuclei (common examples are Uranium & Plutonium, which have around 240 nucleons (nucleon = proton or neutron)).
