nuclear fuel

English

Noun

nuclear fuel (plural nuclear fuels)

1. A radioactive material, such as uranium, used to power a nuclear reactor.
   • 2023 December 27, Ben Jones, “Inside Sellafield... by rail”, in RAIL, number 999, page 20:

     For 75 years, it has fulfilled a wide range of roles: producing weapons-grade plutonium for early atomic weapons in the aftermath of the Second World War; the world's first commercial nuclear power station supplying electricity to the National Grid; reprocessing and storage of nuclear fuel; and the processing of lower grades of radioactive waste for off-site storage.

Related terms

• fuel rod

Translations

radioactive fuel

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 核燃料 (zh) (héránliào)

• Finnish: ydinpolttoaine (fi)
• German: Kernbrennstoff m
• Japanese: 核燃料 (ja) (かくねんりょう, kakunenryō)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: kjernebrensel n

  Nynorsk: kjernebrensel n

• Swedish: kärnbränsle (sv) n
• Ukrainian: я́дерне па́ливо n (jáderne pályvo)

References

• “nuclear fuel”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.