Plutonium-242

Plutonium-242 (²⁴²Pu or Pu-242) is the second longest-lived isotope of plutonium, with a half-life of 375,000 years. The half-life of ²⁴²Pu is about 15 times that of ²³⁹Pu; so it is one-fifteenth as radioactive, and not one of the larger contributors to nuclear waste radioactivity. ²⁴²Pu's gamma ray emissions are also weaker than those of the other isotopes.^[1]

Plutonium-242, ²⁴²Pu

General
Symbol	242Pu
Names	plutonium-242, 242Pu, Pu-242
Protons (Z)	94
Neutrons (N)	148
Nuclide data
Half-life (t1/2)	375000 years
Isotope mass	242.059 Da
Decay products	238U
Decay modes
Decay mode	Decay energy (MeV)
Isotopes of plutonium Complete table of nuclides

It is not fissile (but it is fissionable by fast neutrons), and its neutron capture cross section is low.

In the nuclear fuel cycle

Transmutation flow in LWR

Plutonium-242 is produced by successive neutron capture on ²³⁹Pu, ²⁴⁰Pu, and ²⁴¹Pu. The odd-mass isotopes ²³⁹Pu and ²⁴¹Pu have about a 3/4 chance of undergoing fission on capture of a thermal neutron and about a 1/4 chance of retaining the neutron and becoming the following isotope. The proportion of ²⁴²Pu is low at low burnup but increases nonlinearly.

²⁴²Pu has a particularly low cross section for thermal neutron capture; and it takes three neutron absorptions to become another fissile isotope (either curium-245 or plutonium-241) and then one more neutron to undergo fission. Even then, there is a chance either of those two fissile isotopes will absorb the fourth neutron instead of fissioning, becoming curium-246 (on the way to even heavier actinides like californium, which is a neutron emitter by spontaneous fission and difficult to handle) or becoming ²⁴²Pu again, so the mean number of neutrons absorbed until fission is even higher than 4. Therefore, ²⁴²Pu is particularly unsuited to recycling in a thermal reactor and would be better used in a fast reactor where it can be fissioned directly. However, ²⁴²Pu's low cross section means that relatively little of it is transmuted during one cycle in a thermal reactor.

Decay

Actinides and fission products by half-life v t e
Actinides[2] by decay chain				Half-life range (a)	Fission products of 235U by yield[3]
4n	4n + 1	4n + 2	4n + 3		4.5–7%	0.04–1.25%	<0.001%
228Ra№				4–6 a		155Euþ
248Bk[4]				> 9 a
244Cmƒ	241Puƒ	250Cf	227Ac№	10–29 a	90Sr	85Kr	113mCdþ
232Uƒ		238Puƒ	243Cmƒ	29–97 a	137Cs	151Smþ	121mSn
	249Cfƒ	242mAmƒ		141–351 a	No fission products have a half-life in the range of 100 a–210 ka ...
	241Amƒ		251Cfƒ[5]	430–900 a
		226Ra№	247Bk	1.3–1.6 ka
240Pu	229Th	246Cmƒ	243Amƒ	4.7–7.4 ka
	245Cmƒ	250Cm		8.3–8.5 ka
			239Puƒ	24.1 ka
		230Th№	231Pa№	32–76 ka
236Npƒ	233Uƒ	234U№		150–250 ka	99Tc₡	126Sn
248Cm		242Pu		327–375 ka		79Se₡
				1.33 Ma	135Cs₡
	237Npƒ			1.61–6.5 Ma	93Zr	107Pd
236U			247Cmƒ	15–24 Ma		129I₡
244Pu				80 Ma	... nor beyond 15.7 Ma[6]
232Th№		238U№	235Uƒ№	0.7–14.1 Ga
₡,  has thermal neutron capture cross section in the range of 8–50 barns ƒ,  fissile №,  primarily a naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) þ,  neutron poison (thermal neutron capture cross section greater than 3k barns)

²⁴²Pu alpha decays into uranium-238, before continuing along the uranium series. ²⁴²Pu decays by spontaneous fission in about 5.5 × 10⁻⁴% of cases.^[7]

References

1. "PLUTONIUM ISOTOPIC RESULTS OF KNOWN SAMPLES USING THE SNAP GAMMA SPECTROSCOPY ANALYSIS CODE AND THE ROBWIN SPECTRUM FITTING ROUTINE" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-08-13. Retrieved 2013-03-15.
2. Plus radium (element 88). While actually a sub-actinide, it immediately precedes actinium (89) and follows a three-element gap of instability after polonium (84) where no nuclides have half-lives of at least four years (the longest-lived nuclide in the gap is radon-222 with a half life of less than four days). Radium's longest lived isotope, at 1,600 years, thus merits the element's inclusion here.
3. Specifically from thermal neutron fission of uranium-235, e.g. in a typical nuclear reactor.
4. Milsted, J.; Friedman, A. M.; Stevens, C. M. (1965). "The alpha half-life of berkelium-247; a new long-lived isomer of berkelium-248". Nuclear Physics. 71 (2): 299. Bibcode:1965NucPh..71..299M. doi:10.1016/0029-5582(65)90719-4.
   "The isotopic analyses disclosed a species of mass 248 in constant abundance in three samples analysed over a period of about 10 months. This was ascribed to an isomer of Bk²⁴⁸ with a half-life greater than 9 [years]. No growth of Cf²⁴⁸ was detected, and a lower limit for the β⁻ half-life can be set at about 10⁴ [years]. No alpha activity attributable to the new isomer has been detected; the alpha half-life is probably greater than 300 [years]."
5. This is the heaviest nuclide with a half-life of at least four years before the "sea of instability".
6. Excluding those "classically stable" nuclides with half-lives significantly in excess of ²³²Th; e.g., while ^113mCd has a half-life of only fourteen years, that of ¹¹³Cd is eight quadrillion years.
7. Chart of all nuclei which includes half life and mode of decay