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An explosion at the Soviet nuclear reprocessing plant Mayak released 74 to 1,850 PBq of radioactive material.
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Nuclear reprocessing
Chemical operations that separate fissile material from spent fuel to be recycled as new fuel
Nuclear reprocessing is the chemical separation of fission products and actinides from spent nuclear fuel. Originally, reprocessing was used solely to extract plutonium for producing nuclear weapons. With commercialization of nuclear power, the reprocessed plutonium was recycled…Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
Mayak
Nuclear reprocessing plant in Russia
The Mayak Production Association is one of the largest nuclear facilities in the Russian Federation, housing production reactors and a reprocessing plant. The closest settlements are Ozyorsk to the northwest and Novogornyi to the south.Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
Kyshtym disaster
1957 radiological contamination disaster in the Soviet Union
The Kyshtym disaster,, sometimes referred to as the Mayak disaster or Ozyorsk disaster in newer sources, was a radioactive contamination accident that occurred on 29 September 1957 at Mayak, a plutonium reprocessing production plant for nuclear weapons located in the closed city…Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
Becquerel
SI derived unit of radioactivity
The becquerel is the unit of radioactivity in the International System of Units (SI). One becquerel is defined as an activity of one per second, on average, for aperiodic activity events referred to a radionuclide. For applications relating to human health this is a small…Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
Radioactive decay
Emissions from unstable atomic nuclei
Radioactive decay is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is considered radioactive. Three of the most common types of decay are alpha, beta, and gamma decay. The weak force is the mechanism that is…Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)