the fission of 235u (uranium - 235) nuclei is initiated by
Uranium-235 The fission of one atom of uranium-235 generates 202.5 MeV = 3.24 × 10−11 J, which translates to 19.54 TJ/mol, or 83.14 TJ/kg.[2] This is around 2.5 million times more than the energy released from burning coal.[3] When 235 92U nuclides are bombarded with neutrons, one of the many fission reactions that it can undergo is the following (shown visually in the adjacent image):
Iodine-131 Iodine-131 (131I) is an important radioisotope of iodine discovered by Glenn Seaborg and John Livingood in 1938 at the University of California, Berkeley.[1] It has a radioactive decay half-life of about eight days. It is associated with nuclear energy, medical diagnostic and treatment procedures, and natural gas production. It also plays a major role as a radioactive isotope present in nuclear fission products, and was a significant contributor to the health hazards from open-air atomic bomb testing in the 1950s, and from the Chernobyl disaster, as well as being a large fraction of the contamination hazard in the first weeks in the Fukushima nuclear crisis. This is because I-131 is a major fission product of uranium and plutonium, comprising nearly 3% of the total products of fission (by weight). See fission product yield for a comparison with other radioactive fission products. I-131 is also a major fission product of uranium-233, produced from thorium.