Question

Uranium 236 is highly unstable. What reactions take place in it at the time of nuclear fission?

Answer 1

Hint :Nuclear fission is a reaction in which a large nucleus splits into its respective smaller nuclei( also called as fission fragments). The smaller nuclei are called daughter nuclei. Many compounds undergo fission, especially uranium 236.

Complete Step By Step Answer:
Uranium-236 is a man-made isotope of uranium. It is a radioactive compound. It is highly unstable in nature. An Italian physicist Enrico Fermi is the first physicist to achieve nuclear fission reaction in a laboratory. He used uranium-236 and bombarded it with few neutrons, as a result it gave many compounds.
Now lets see how many product if forms:
Uranium 235 undergoes fission to form uranium 236
 $ _{92}^{235}U + _0^1n \to _{92}^{236}U \to _{54}^{140}Xe + _{38}^{93}Sr + 3_0^1n $
If we put this reaction in words it would be as : the uranium-235 undergoes fission to give uranium-236 which further undergoes fission to release xenon(Xe) and strontium(Sr) along with 3 moles of neutrons.

Additional Information:
Fission products are very radioactive. These by-products formed due to fission reactions form a major radioactive waste and need to be decomposed very systematically and carefully.
The neutrons used for bombarding an unstable compound come out of the reactions so that they can again be used and they remain unreacted.
Energy released during fusion as well as fission reactions is very high. And hence these reactions are equally dangerous.

Note :
Uranium236 decays through alpha decay to give thorium 232. These are all the reactions that are caused after bombarding the neutron to uranium. It undergoes spontaneous fission with a very low probability of 0.00000009%.