Nuclear Binding Energy Calculator


This website provides a user-friendly tool for calculating the binding energy of any specified nuclide. Users can input the number of protons and neutrons, and the website will then verify the existence of the nuclide in the IAEA-NDS database. If the nuclide is found, the website presents its binding energy calculated using two distinct methods: 1.) The Mass Defect Approach: This method calculates the binding energy by determining the mass difference between the nuclide and its constituent protons and neutrons. 2.) The Liquid Drop Model: This is a semi-empirical formula that estimates the binding energy of a nucleus, taking into account the number of protons and neutrons it contains.


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What is Nuclear Binding Energy?


Nuclear Binding Energy is the energy required to break a nucleus into its constituent nucleons (protons and neutrons), or the energy released when these nucleons combine to form a nucleus. This process involves a phenomenon known as the "mass defect," where the mass of a nucleus is actually less than the total mass of its constituent nucleons. According to Einstein's mass-energy equivalence principle, the difference in mass translates into the binding energy of the nucleus.


Example: The hydrogen-2 nucleus, also called a deuteron, is the simplest kind of nucleus with one proton and one neutron, requires an input of 2.23 million electron volts (MeV) energy to disassemble. In contrast, when a neutron and proton come together to create a deuteron, 2.23 MeV of energy is released as gamma radiation.


The Nuclear Binding Energy per nucleon is the average energy needed to detach a single nucleon from the nucleus. It varies across different elements, with hydrogen-2 having an average of 1.11226 MeV per nucleon, while nickel-62 has about 8.7945 MeV per nucleon. This measure gives insight into the stability of a nucleus: the higher the binding energy per nucleon, the more stable the nucleus.

This graph displays the binding energy per nucleon (BE/A) in MeV plotted against the total number of nucleons (A) for 3,357 nuclides. The data for this plot are sourced from the IAEA Nuclear Data Services and can be downloaded along with the XmGrace file via the following links: