5 Things You Wouldn't Expect a Nuclear Reactor To Do - By MITK12Videos
Transcript
| 00:0-1 | here at the M . I . T . Nuclear | |
| 00:00 | reactor lab . We have vision reactions going on in | |
| 00:03 | our core . And that means that there are uranium | |
| 00:06 | 2 35 atoms that are splitting into neutrons . Heat | |
| 00:09 | energy and other smaller atoms . Power reactors use the | |
| 00:12 | heat energy to generate electricity . But it turns out | |
| 00:15 | that there's so much more that you can do with | |
| 00:17 | the fission reactor like measuring tiny amounts of a bunch | |
| 00:20 | of different elements . We can even measure arsenic in | |
| 00:22 | a sample of hair to do this . I take | |
| 00:25 | my hair sample place it in this container , put | |
| 00:29 | the lid on and put it in this tube here | |
| 00:34 | . Yeah , From here the hair gets sent through | |
| 00:37 | the pipes into a chamber that's right next to the | |
| 00:39 | reactor core where it absorbs some neutrons which makes some | |
| 00:42 | of the arsenic and the hair radioactive . After 12 | |
| 00:44 | hours in the reactor in a few days of decay | |
| 00:47 | , I take the sample put it in this lead | |
| 00:49 | container to protect me from the radiation and I go | |
| 00:52 | analyze it . I put the hair sample in this | |
| 00:55 | detector , which is very sensitive , so sensitive . | |
| 00:58 | It measures radiation from individual arsenic atoms in my hair | |
| 01:03 | . The area under this peak tells us how much | |
| 01:05 | arsenic is in the sample . So our reactor can | |
| 01:08 | tell us if someone's been exposed to things like arsenic | |
| 01:10 | just by analyzing their hair , it can measure very | |
| 01:13 | small amounts of a lot of different elements in materials | |
| 01:17 | that are difficult to measure otherwise . Cool . Thing | |
| 01:19 | number two is that we're using the neutron beam produced | |
| 01:22 | in our reactor to see the microscopic structure of materials | |
| 01:26 | . The nutrients produced by the fission reaction come out | |
| 01:29 | as a beam and they hit the sample , which | |
| 01:31 | is positioned right here . When the neutron beam hits | |
| 01:34 | a sample , the sample acts like a mirror reflecting | |
| 01:36 | the neutrons in all different directions Inside this drum there's | |
| 01:39 | a detector that measures the different directions . A number | |
| 01:42 | of neutrons reflected in each direction , and this can | |
| 01:44 | actually tell us how the atoms are positioned inside our | |
| 01:49 | sample . So on the X axis here is the | |
| 01:51 | angle of the detector with respect to the sample and | |
| 01:55 | on the Y axis is the number of neutrons of | |
| 01:57 | the detector sees . So at this position there are | |
| 02:00 | a lot of neutrons , almost 1400 per second . | |
| 02:03 | And over here There are about 600 down here . | |
| 02:06 | There are almost no neutrons . So using these numbers | |
| 02:09 | , we can figure out how atoms are arranged inside | |
| 02:11 | of the material . Scientists and other reactors want to | |
| 02:14 | use this method to see how the atomic structure of | |
| 02:16 | different nuclear fuels change while they're used in a reactor | |
| 02:19 | , seeing these changes can help us develop new , | |
| 02:22 | safer and more efficient types of nuclear fuel . And | |
| 02:24 | using neutrons is the only way that we can see | |
| 02:26 | these changes in atomic structure . You wouldn't be able | |
| 02:29 | to see the same thing with the regular microscope or | |
| 02:31 | any other method . Number three . We can turn | |
| 02:33 | gold into tools to fight cancer . We start by | |
| 02:38 | loading tiny seeds of gold into a holder that we | |
| 02:40 | call a rabbit . So I'll take the rabbit over | |
| 02:43 | to one of our shielded work areas where we can | |
| 02:46 | insert the rabbit into the reactor . Not not um | |
| 03:03 | Mhm . And now I'm gonna send the gold seeds | |
| 03:10 | next to the reactor core . They go in there | |
| 03:13 | where they will absorb neutrons and become radioactive after they | |
| 03:17 | stay in there for a few minutes , we send | |
| 03:18 | them back out and package them up . We package | |
| 03:21 | them up and move the gold seeds into a lead | |
| 03:23 | container . The gold seeds are now radioactive . And | |
| 03:26 | the fact that it's radioactive is actually a good thing | |
| 03:28 | because doctors are gonna take those gold seeds and inject | |
| 03:31 | them into a tumor . And it's the radiation from | |
| 03:34 | the goal that's gonna kill those cancer cells . # | |
| 03:36 | four . Another cool thing our reactor does is we | |
| 03:39 | help create electronic components for things like airplanes , train | |
| 03:44 | stations and hybrid cars . So right now this silicon | |
| 03:47 | does not conduct electricity , but I can change that | |
| 03:50 | by loading it into the reactor . What ? Mm | |
| 04:02 | mm . Okay . So what's happening behind me ? | |
| 04:04 | Is that silicon piece that just loaded is traveling through | |
| 04:07 | a tube that runs underneath the reactor core . Once | |
| 04:10 | it's under the reactor core gets bombarded with neutrons from | |
| 04:13 | the fission process . Some of the silicon atoms absorb | |
| 04:16 | a neutron and transform into phosphorus . It's this phosphorus | |
| 04:20 | that makes the material a really good semiconductor . This | |
| 04:23 | is what the silicon looks like before it goes into | |
| 04:25 | the reactor and this is what goes into electronics . | |
| 04:29 | The reactor turns the silicon into a semiconductor and a | |
| 04:32 | super precise and controlled way which I control from over | |
| 04:34 | here . That's why we use these semiconductors and mission | |
| 04:37 | critical components like the power grid and not your cell | |
| 04:40 | phone . And last but not least , we test | |
| 04:42 | materials that can make safer and better reactors in the | |
| 04:45 | future . This morning we put an experiment into our | |
| 04:47 | reactor with a special type of salt . So our | |
| 04:51 | reactor , like almost all reactors in the world uses | |
| 04:54 | water to cool it . The special thing about this | |
| 04:56 | salt is that it can run at much higher temperature | |
| 04:59 | than water and still be a liquid . It doesn't | |
| 05:01 | boil . So a reactor using salt as coolant instead | |
| 05:04 | of water can go too much higher temperature . And | |
| 05:07 | the efficiency of a reactor gets better the hotter it | |
| 05:09 | runs . And because there's no water there's no steam | |
| 05:13 | , which means you don't need to have thicker walls | |
| 05:15 | and bigger pipes to keep the reactor safe . So | |
| 05:18 | the salt in our experiment is down in the reactor | |
| 05:21 | core and this experiment is gonna let us take that | |
| 05:24 | salt heated up to the same temperatures that would be | |
| 05:26 | inside the core of a full size salt reactor and | |
| 05:30 | then hit it with the same kind of radiation that | |
| 05:31 | it would see in the core of assault reactor . | |
| 05:33 | And as you hit the salt with radiation , does | |
| 05:36 | it produce different products that come out of the salt | |
| 05:38 | ? Or does it change the salt in certain ways | |
| 05:41 | ? This salt experiment is going to be in our | |
| 05:43 | reactor for about 1000 hours , but that's not the | |
| 05:45 | only thing we study . We also look at different | |
| 05:48 | materials , fuels and even sensors to go inside the | |
| 05:51 | core of reactors . All of this research is working | |
| 05:55 | towards making reactors safer and more efficient in the future | |
| 05:58 | . Yeah . |
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