Plutonium - A Radioactive Chemical Element

The Discovery

In 1941, four scientists from the University of California, Berkeley discovered plutonium. The finding took place when the men bombarded uranium-238 with deuterons which they accelerated the uranium-238 around in a cyclotron. The result was the creation of neptunium-238 along with two free neutrons which decayed and became plutonium, according to Chemistry Explained.

It was 1946 when one scientist, Glenn T. Seaborg, wrote a paper about the discovery. The team shared the results with the rest of the community of scientists, but the academic community removed the results when they found that plutonium contained isotope Pu-239, an ingredient that could contribute to the creation of the atomic bomb.

The Los Alamos National Library reported that Seaborg transferred to the Plutonium Production Lab at the University of Chicago. There he was charged with creating plutonium as part of the Manhattan Project, a secret group working to develop the atomic bomb. The plutonium was named for the now debunked planet, following the practice of naming the two previous elements, neptunium and uranium after Neptune and Uranus.

Uses for Plutonium

But along with its infamous use in the Manhattan Project, plutonium had other reasons for being, including the following:

• Plutonium's radiation manifests as heat. It produces so much heat that it feels warm to the touch when held. A large piece of plutonium, when placed in water, can cause the water to boil.
• Space probes and space vehicles use plutonium to provide electrical power.
• The heat property of Plutonium also makes it useful for some thermoelectric generator uses. And it is utilized as a fuel for nuclear fission.
• When a neutron collides with uranium-238 isotopes in the reactor, they do not experience fission, but they do change to plutonium-239 which, when removed from the reactor, is purified and re-used as fuel for yet another nuclear reactor.
• The earliest pacemakers had batteries that contained small amounts of plutonium-238.

"Fat Man" (the bomb which dropped on the Nagasaki) had a plutonium core.

Dangers of Plutonium

The toxicity of plutonium is one of the highest of any element. Only remote devices are safe when handling the compound, and the person working with the plutonium must remain behind a protective wall to avoid radiation. A danger to the body when exposed to plutonium is that it is apt to concentrate in bones which could lead to bone cancer down the line.

Characteristics of Plutonium

• A silvery radioactive metal, plutonium does tarnish when exposed to air. The result is a yellow oxide coating.
• Plutonium's six allotropic forms differ widely in density and crystal structure.
• And due to Plutonium's 87.7-year half-life, it produces roughly 4800 gigajoules of energy. For that same amount of energy, if using natural gas, the Mars rover would need to take along approximately 86 metric tons of methane, along with 345 metric tons of oxygen.

Plutonium’s Future

An article in The Atlantic by Shirley Li, the author quotes Alex Wellerstein, a historian of science at the Stevens Institute of Technology, who believes that nuclear energy can potentially become a part of future that will have no fossil fuels. Some may disagree that creating more nuclear waste is a good idea, but Wellerstein adds that it may be the world’s only alternative.