Plutonium:
Plutonium has an Atomic number 94
Plutonium has an Atomic weight 239
Plutonium’s atomic radium is (nm) 0.137
Plutonium has an Electronic configuration [Rn] 5f6 6d0 7s2
Plutonium has a Melting point of 639.5 degrees Celsius
Plutonium has a Boiling point of 3235 degrees Celsius
Plutonium is a rare radioactive, metallic and toxic chemical element. Plutonium’s symbol is Pu and the atomic number is 94. Plutonium is used in most modern nuclear weapons. The most notable isotope of plutonium is 239Pu. This isotope has a half-life of 24,100 years. That is a long time. This is longer than we have records of not counting fossils, maybe we should use plutonium as paper. This isotope can be made from natural uranium. The most stable isotope is 244Pu, with a half-life of about 80 million years, this is long enough to be found in extremely small quantities in nature. This fact makes 244Pu the nucleon-richest atom that naturally occurs in the Earth’s crust even if it is in tiny amounts. Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg, Edwin M. McMillan, J. W. Kennedy, Z. M. Tatom and A. C. Wahl discovered this element in Berkeley on December 14, 1940 by deuteron bombardment of uranium in the 60-inch cyclotron. This was a major discovery but was kept secret for a while due to the war that was going on at the time. The element was named after Pluto who was also the name of a planet but the planet was hit by an astroid and is now three separate astroids. The element’s proper name should have been plutium but the Dr. that discovered this element did not like how that sounded.
The half lives of the different plutonium are as listed:
Pu-238, half-life 88 years, this is caused by alpha decay
Pu-239, fissile half-life 24 000 years, this is caused by alpha decay
Pu-240, fertile half-life 6 560 years, this is caused by alpha decay
Pu-241, fissile half-life 14.3 years, this is caused by beta decay
Pu-242, half-life 376 000 years, this is caused by alpha decay
Some uses are
Vitrification with high-level waste – treating plutonium as waste, Fabrication with uranium oxide as a mixed oxide (MOX) fuel for burning in existing reactors, Fuelling fast-neutron reactors.
This is a very deadly element that many countries want to get their hands on so that they will be able to have nuclear weapons of mass destruction. This would not be good so if you have a friend that wants plutonium, report him and don’t give him any. If you do you are a terrorist
