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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Article examines presence of Kr-85 in atmosphere

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:6554690
The radioactivity of the atmosphere has increased gradually in the past 15 years as a result of human activity as artificial radioactive materials get into the atmosphere as a result of fission and fusion processes. The noble gases arising during fission represent an exception; they do not form compounds in the atmosphere and do not adhere to dust particles. The noble gas isotopes are given with half lives longer than one hour arising in the fission of various heavy nuclei and their fission yields in percent. During fission there arise 16 isotopes of Kr and 20 isotopes of Xe of these 10 are stable, the rest decay with short or very short half lives. The only exception is Kr-85, the half life of which is 10.76 years. The Kr-85 arising during nuclear weapon experiments gets into the atmosphere. The purpose of this study was to measure the Kr-85 content in the atmosphere.
Research Organization:
Joint Publications Research Service, Arlington, VA (USA)
OSTI ID:
6554690
Report Number(s):
N-8424021
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English