Neptunium Cascade Kinetics

by Kateryna Matiash

 

Submitted : Spring 2015

Abstract. The goal of this project was to calculate the amount of actinium, the last relatively non-transient isotope in the neptunium cascade, after 1 year in the series of radioactive decays of ²³⁷Np and its intermediates. These computations were done by solving known first-order linear differential equations and deriving the consecutive ones for further intermediates. The number of particles per million (ppm) for actinium-225 was then found as a difference between the initial amount of ²³⁷Np and the sum of all of the decay intermediates’ particles. Ultimately, the calculations involved substituting for the initial amount of Np and decay constants known from radioactive isotopes’ half-lives to calculate quantities of isotopes for each of the reaction’s steps.

 

Keywords. Neptunium-237, actinium-225, neptunium cascade, intermediates, successive radioactive decay.

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