• Question: is it possible to mix certain things with uranium to make it more radioactive,

    Asked by petrolhead918spyder to James, Joe, Leonie, Olivia on 18 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: James Pope

      James Pope answered on 18 Mar 2015:

      Hi Petrolhead918spyder,

      You can’t make a substance more radioactive, however you can make a radioactive material more reactive with the addition of other materials. Many modern nuclear warheads use a mixture of plutonium and uranium to create the two stage thermonuclear detonation they seak to employ.

    • Photo: Joe Spencer

      Joe Spencer answered on 18 Mar 2015:

      Just to reiterate James.
      You can’t make thigns more radiactive, but I guess yeah, the way the Hydrogen bomb works is to initially use a Uranium bomb to pressurise and energise the fusion process to make an even bigger nuclear blast

    • Photo: Olivia Lynes

      Olivia Lynes answered on 18 Mar 2015:

      I’m a bit worried why you’d want to make it more reactive! I’m having enough trouble trying to deal with it in it’s current reactivity. If we made it more reactive it would break down into lots more different elements than it does now and it would be even harder to get rid of nuclear waste.

Comments