20 Facts About Plutonium

Plutonium is a radioactive chemical element with the symbol Pu and atomic number 94.

Plutonium was first synthetically produced and isolated in late 1940 and early 1941, by a deuteron bombardment of uranium-238 in the 1.

Plutonium is the element with the highest atomic number to occur in nature.

Plutonium isotopes are expensive and inconvenient to separate, so particular isotopes are usually manufactured in specialized reactors.

Plutonium normally has six allotropes and forms a seventh at high temperature within a limited pressure range.

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Plutonium is identified as either weapons-grade, fuel-grade, or reactor-grade based on the percentage of plutonium-240 that it contains.

Plutonium-244 has been found in interstellar space and is has the longest half-life of any non-primordial radioisotope.

Plutonium-241 is the parent isotope of the neptunium decay series, decaying to americium-241 via beta emission.

Plutonium-239 is synthesized via the following reaction using uranium and neutrons via beta decay with neptunium as an intermediate:.

Plutonium-238 is synthesized by bombarding uranium-238 with deuterons in the following reaction:.

Plutonium is an element in which the 5f electrons are the transition border between delocalized and localized; it is therefore considered one of the most complex elements.

Plutonium was first produced, isolated and then chemically identified between December 1940 and February 1941 by Glenn T Seaborg, Edwin McMillan, Emilio Segre, Joseph W Kennedy, and Arthur Wahl by deuteron bombardment of uranium in the 60-inch cyclotron at the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley.

Plutonium chose the letters "Pu" as a joke, in reference to the interjection "P U" to indicate an especially disgusting smell, which passed without notice into the periodic table.

Plutonium-240 has a high spontaneous fission rate, raising the overall background neutron level of the plutonium sample.

Plutonium-238 has been used successfully to power artificial heart pacemakers, to reduce the risk of repeated surgery.

Plutonium-238 was studied as a way to provide supplemental heat to scuba diving.

Plutonium is not absorbed into the body efficiently when ingested; only 0.

Plutonium absorbed by the body is excreted very slowly, with a biological half-life of 200 years.

Plutonium passes only slowly through cell membranes and intestinal boundaries, so absorption by ingestion and incorporation into bone structure proceeds very slowly.

Plutonium toxicity is just as detrimental to larvae of fish in nuclear waste areas.