Nuclear energy is the energy in the nucleus, or core, of

an atom. Atoms are tiny units that make up all matter in

the universe, and energy is what holds
the nucleus together. There is a huge amount of energy
in an atom's dense nucleus. In fact, the power that holds
the nucleus together is officially called the "strong force."

Nuclear energy can be used to create electricity, but it

must first be released from the atom. In the process
of nuclear fission, atoms are split to release that energy.

A nuclear reactor, or power plant, is a series of machines

that can control nuclear fission to produce electricity.
The fuel that nuclear reactors use to produce nuclear
fission is pellets of the element uranium. In a nuclear
reactor, atoms of uranium are forced to break apart. As
they split, the atoms release tiny particles called fission
products. Fission products cause other uranium atoms to
split, starting a chain reaction. The energy released from
this chain reaction creates heat.

The heat created by nuclear fission warms the

reactor's cooling agent. A cooling agent is usually water,
but some nuclear
reactors use liquid metal or molten salt. The cooling
agent, heated by nuclear fission, produces steam.
The steam turns turbines, or wheels turned by a
flowing current. The turbines drive generators, or
engines that create electricity.
Rods of material called nuclear poison can adjust how
much electricity is produced. Nuclear poisons are
materials, such as a type of the element xenon,
that absorb some of the fission products created
by nuclear fission. The more rods of nuclear poison that
are present during the chain reaction, the slower and
more controlled the reaction will be. Removing the rods
will allow a stronger chain reaction and create
more electricity.

As of 2011, about 15 percent of the

world's electricity is generated by nuclear power plants.
The United States has more than 100 reactors, although
it creates most of its electricity from fossil
fuels and hydroelectric energy. Nations such as
Lithuania, France, and Slovakia create almost all of
their electricity from nuclear power plants.

Nuclear Food: Uranium

Uranium is the fuel most widely used to produce nuclear

energy. That's because uranium atoms split apart
relatively easily. Uranium is also a very common
element, found in rocks all over the world. However, the
specific type of uranium used to produce nuclear energy,
called U-235, is rare. U-235 makes up less than one
percent of the uranium in the world.
Although some of the uranium the United States uses is
mined in this country, most is imported. The U.S.
gets uranium from Australia, Canada, Kazakhstan,
Russia, and Uzbekistan. Once uranium is mined, it must
be extracted from other minerals. It must also be
processed before it can be used.

Because nuclear fuel can be used to create nuclear

weapons as well as nuclear reactors, only nations that
are part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT) are allowed to import uranium or plutonium,
another nuclear fuel. The treaty promotes the peaceful
use of nuclear fuel, as well as limiting the spread
of nuclear weapons.

A typical nuclear reactor uses about 200 tons

of uranium every year. Complex processes allow
some uranium and plutonium to be re-enriched
or recycled. This reduces the amount
of mining, extracting, and processing that needs to be
done.

Nuclear Energy and People

Nuclear energy produces electricity that can be used to

power homes, schools, businesses, and hospitals. The
first nuclear reactor to produce electricity was located
near Arco, Idaho. The Experimental Breeder Reactor
began powering itself in 1951. The first nuclear power
plant designed to provide energy to a community was
established in Obninsk, Russia, in 1954.
Building nuclear reactors requires a high level
of technology, and only the countries that have signed
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty can get
the uranium or plutonium that is required. For these
reasons, most nuclear power plants are located in the
developed world.

Nuclear power plants produce renewable, clean energy.

They do not pollute the air or release greenhouse gases.
They can be built in urban or rural areas, and do
not radically alter the environment around them.

The steam powering the turbines and generators is

ultimately recycled. It is cooled down in a separate
structure called a cooling tower. The steam turns back
into water and can be used again to produce
more electricity. Excess steam is simply recycled into
the atmosphere, where it does little harm as clean
water vapor.

However, the byproduct of nuclear

energy is radioactive material. Radioactive material is a
collection of unstable atomic nuclei. These nuclei lose
their energy and can affect many materials around them,
including organisms and the
environment. Radioactive material can be
extremely toxic, causing burns and increasing the risk
for cancers, blood diseases, and bone decay.
Radioactive waste is what is left over from the operation
of a nuclear reactor. Radioactive waste is mostly
protective clothing worn by workers, tools, and any other
material that have been in contact
with radioactive dust. Radioactive waste is long-lasting.
Materials like clothes and tools can stay radioactive for
thousands of years. The government regulates how
these materials are disposed of so they
don't contaminate anything else.

Used fuel and rods of nuclear poison are

extremely radioactive. The used uranium pellets must be
stored in special containers that look like large swimming
pools. Water cools the fuel and insulates the outside
from contact with the radioactivity. Some nuclear plants
store their used fuel in dry storage tanks above ground.

The storage sites for radioactive waste have become

very controversial in the United States. For years, the
government planned to construct an enormous nuclear
waste facility near Yucca Mountain, Nevada, for
instance. Environmental groups and local citizens
protested the plan. They worried
about radioactive waste leaking into the water supply
and the Yucca Mountain environment, about 130
kilometers (80 miles) from the large urban area of Las
Vegas, Nevada. Although the government began
investigating the site in 1978, it stopped planning for
a nuclear waste facility in Yucca Mountain in 2009.
Chernobyl

Critics of nuclear energy worry that the storage facilities

for radioactive waste will leak, crack,
or erode. Radioactive material could
then contaminate the soil and groundwater near
the facility. This could lead to serious health problems for
the people and organisms in the area. All communities
would have to be evacuated.

This is what happened in Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986.

A steam explosion at one of the power
plants four nuclear reactors caused a fire, called
a plume. This plume was highly radioactive, creating a
cloud of radioactive particles that fell to the ground,
called fallout. The fallout spread over the
Chernobyl facility, as well as the surrounding area.
The fallout drifted with the wind, and
the particles entered the water cycle as rain.
Radioactivity traced to Chernobyl fell as rain over
Scotland and Ireland. Most of the radioactive fallout fell
in Belarus.
The environmental impact of the Chernobyl
disaster was immediate. For kilometers around
the facility, the pine forest dried up and died. The red
color of the dead pines earned this area the nickname
the Red Forest. Fish from the nearby Pripyat River had
so much radioactivity that people could no longer eat
them. Cattle and horses in the area died.
More than 100,000 people were relocated after
the disaster, but the number of human victims of
Chernobyl is difficult to determine. The effects
of radiation poisoning only appear after many
years. Cancers and other diseases can be very difficult
to trace to a single source.

Future of Nuclear Energy

Nuclear reactors use fission, or the splitting of atoms, to

produce energy. Nuclear energy can also be produced
through fusion, or joining (fusing) atoms together. The
sun, for instance, is constantly undergoing nuclear
fusion as hydrogen atoms fuse to form helium. Because
all life on our planet depends on the sun, you could say
that nuclear fusion makes life on Earth possible.

Nuclear power plants do not have the capability to safely

and reliably produce energy from nuclear fusion. It's not
clear whether the process will ever be an option for
producing electricity. Nuclear engineers are
researching nuclear fusion, however, because the
process will likely be safe and cost-effective.
FAST FACT
Nuclear Tectonics
The decay of uranium deep inside the Earth is
responsible for most of the planet's geothermal energy,
causing plate tectonics and continental drift.
FAST FACT
Three Mile Island
The worst nuclear accident in the United States
happened at the Three Mile Island facility near
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1979. The cooling system in
one of the two reactors malfunctioned, leading to an
emission of radioactive fallout. No deaths or injuries were
directly linked to the accident.
Articles & Profiles

ne of the grand challenges facing humanity today is a safe, clean, and sustainable energy system
where combustion no longer dominates. This review proposes that electrochemical energy
conversion could set the foundation for such an energy system. It further suggests that a simple
switch from an acid to a base membrane coupled with innovative cell designs may lead to a new
era of affordable electrochemical devices, including fuel cells, electrolyzers, solar hydrogen
generators, and redox flow batteries, for which recent progress is discussed using the authors'
work as examples. It also notes that electrochemical energy engineering will likely become a
vibrant subdiscipline of chemical engineering and a fertile ground for chemical engineering
innovation. To realize this vision, it is necessary to incorporate fundamental electrochemistry and
electrochemical engineering principles into the chemical engineering curriculum.

Keywords

energy engineering, chemical engineering, electrochemical engineering, fuel cells, solar

hydrogen generators, redox flow batteries

ELECTROCHEMICAL ENERGY ENGINEERING

Energy has been central to human civilization. The availability of affordable, abundant fossil
energy has been the primary driving force for much of the human progress made in the past 100+
years. With depleting fossil fuel reserves, increasing world population, growing expectations for
high living standards, and concerns over air quality and climate change, one of the grand
challenges facing humanity today is the development of an alternative energy system that is safe,
clean, and sustainable, in which the combustion of fossil fuels no longer dominates.

Throughout human history, combustion has played a leading role in energy conversion. In a
combustion process, reduction and oxidation (redox) reactions are coupled intimately, and
electrons are transferred directly from the fuel to the oxidant to produce heat. Although this heat
can be used directly, it is more often converted to mechanical energy, most often via mechanical
energy to electricity, the most convenient form of energy. By contrast, in an electrochemical
energy conversion process, the redox reactions are spatially separated by an electrolyte, allowing
direct extraction of electrons as electricity and leading to higher intrinsic energy conversion
efficiencies and milder process conditions.

Electrochemical energy engineering can be considered a subdiscipline of chemical engineering

that focuses on the design and operation of electrochemical energy devices and processes. With
training in chemistry, including electrochemistry, physics, mathematics, reaction engineering,
transport, and thermodynamics, chemical engineers are best positioned to take the lead in
electrochemical energy engineering. Electrochemical engineering with a broader scope that
includes electroplating, electrosynthesis, corrosion, and energy conversion has been a part of
chemical engineering programs for more than half a century. The research program established
by Charles W. Tobias in the 1950s at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory pioneered the field of electrochemical engineering and trained
generations of electrochemical engineers (1). A significant number of today's leading
electrochemical engineers in academia, industry, and national laboratories can trace their
academic lineage to the Tobias group. Another major contribution to the field of electrochemical
engineering from the Berkeley group is John S. Newman's textbook, Electrochemical Systems,
which is a must-read for electrochemical engineers. As society has refocused itself on developing
a safe, clean, and sustainable energy system, it has become clear that electrochemical energy
devices will play a leading role, and as such, electrochemical energy engineering as a discipline
is destined to grow and prosper in the twenty-first century.

electron-hole pairs are formed in semiconductors on both sides. The excited electrons in the
conduction band of the n-type semiconductor on the anode move toward the ohmic contact to
neutralize the holes of the p-type semiconductor of the cathode. The excited holes on the anode
and electrons on the cathode are responsible for OER and HER, respectively. Therefore,
hydrogen and oxygen are separated from the moment of formation in this cell configuration. An
added benefit of the PEM (∼50 μm in thickness) is the reduced volume needed for proton
conduction as compared with a liquid electrolyte. Lewis et al. (84, 85) pioneered PEM-based
PEC cells for solar hydrogen. A vast amount of literature has been dedicated to the engineering
of the position and width of band gap of both photoanodes and photocathodes (77). Moreover,
the design and structure-reactivity relation of electrocatalysts to facilitate the HER and OER
have also been areas of intense research.

 5.