In: Chemistry
“Atomic fission” is when a nucleus gets hit by a neutron and splits in half, releasing a great deal of energy. It is the basic principle behind nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. The “Fat Man” atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945 had a plutonium core of 6.4 kg of the isotope Pu-239. (Note that “239” is the molar mass.) When the bomb exploded, it released an amount of energy equivalent to 21 kilotons of TNT.
Although the bomb needed 6.4 kg of plutonium to function at all, only a portion of those plutonium atoms actually fissioned. Calculate how many kilograms of Pu-239 actually underwent fission when the bomb exploded.
You will need some conversion factors to do this problem:
The energy from the explosion of 1 kiloton of TNT is equal to 4.2 x 1012J.
The fission of a single atom of Pu-239 releases 210 MeV (mega electron volts) of energy.
1 MeV = 1.602 x 10-13 J