Potential for large-scale uses for fission-product Xenon

Of all fission products in spent, low-enrichment-uranium power-reactor fuels, xenon is produced in the highest yield - nearly one cubic meter, STP, per metric ton. In aged fuels which may be considered for processing in the US, radioactive xenon isotopes approach the lowest limits of detection. The separation from accompanying radioactive 85Kr is the essential problem; however, this is state-of-the-art technology which has been demonstrated on the pilot scale to yield xenon with pico-curie levels of 85Kr contamination. If needed for special applications, such levels could be further reduced. Environmental considerations require the isolation of essentially all fission-product krypton during fuel processing. Economic restraints assure that the bulk of this krypton will need to be separated from the much-more-voluminous xenon fraction of the total amount of fission gas. Xenon may thus be discarded or made available for uses at probably very low cost. In contrast with many other fission products which have unique radioactive characteristics which make them useful as sources of heat, gamma and x-rays, and luminescence - as well as for medicinal diagnostics and therapeutics - fission-product xenon differs from naturally occurring xenon only in its isotopic composition which gives it a slightly hgiher atomic weight, because of the much higher concentrations of the 134Xe and 136Xe isotopes. Therefore, fission-product xenon can most likely find uses in applications which already exist but which can not be exploited most beneficially because of the high cost and scarcity of natural xenon. Unique uses would probably include applications in improved incandescent light illumination in place of krypton and in human anesthesia