Uranium (revised)
URANIUM (REVISED)
Note: This article, originally published in 1998, was updated in 2006 for the eBook edition.
Overview
Uranium is the heaviest and last naturally occurring element in the periodic table. The periodic table is a chart that shows how chemical elements are related to each other. Uranium occurs near the beginning of the actinide family. The actinide family consists of elements with atomic numbers 90 through 103.
At one time, uranium was considered to be a relatively unimportant element. It had a few applications in the making of stains and dyes, in producing specialized steels, and in lamps. But annual sales before World War II (1939-45) amounted to no more than a few hundred metric tons of the metal and its compounds.
SYMBOL
U
ATOMIC NUMBER
92
ATOMIC MASS
238.0289
FAMILY
Actinide
PRONUNCIATION
yUH-RAY-nee-um
Then, a dramatic revolution occurred. Scientists discovered that one form of uranium will undergo nuclear fission. Nuclear fission is the process in which the nuclei of large atoms break apart. Large amounts of energy and smaller atoms are produced during fission. The first application of this discovery was in the making of nuclear weapons, such as the atomic bomb. After the war, nuclear power plants were built to make productive use of nuclear fission. Nuclear power plants convert the energy released by fission to electricity. Today, uranium is regarded as one of the most important elements for the future of the human race.
Discovery and naming
Credit for the discovery of uranium is usually given to German chemist Martin Klaproth (1743-1817). During the late 1780s, Klaproth was studying a common and well-known ore called pitchblende. At the time, scientists thought that pitchblende was an ore of iron and zinc.
During his research, however, Klaproth found that a small portion of the ore did not behave the way iron or zinc would be expected to behave. He concluded that he had found a new element and suggested the name uranium for the element. The name was given in honor of the Uranus, a planet that had been discovered only a few years earlier, in 1781.
For some time, scientists believed that Klaproth had isolated uranium. Eventually they realized he had found uranium oxide (UO2), a compound of uranium. It was not until a half century later, in fact, that the pure element was prepared. In 1841, French chemist Eugène-Melchior Peligot (1811-90) produced pure uranium from uranium oxide.
Early researchers did not know that uranium was radioactive. In fact, radioactivity was not discovered until 1898. Radioactivity is the tendency of an isotope or element to break down and give off radiation.
Physical properties
Uranium is a silvery, shiny metal that is both ductile and malleable. Ductile means capable of being drawn into thin wires. Malleable means capable of being hammered into thin sheets. Its melting point is 1,132.3°C (2,070.1°F) and its boiling point is about 3,818°C (6,904°F). Its density is about 19.05 grams per cubic centimeter.
Chemical properties
Uranium is a relatively reactive element. It combines with nonmetals such as oxygen, sulfur, chlorine, fluorine, phosphorus, and bromine. It also dissolves in acids and reacts with water. It forms many compounds that tend to have yellowish or greenish colors.
Occurrence in nature
Uranium is a moderately rare element. Its abundance is estimated to be about 1 to 2 parts per million, making it about as abundant as bromine or tin. The most common ore of uranium is pitchblende, although it also occurs in other minerals, such as uraninite, carnotite, uranophane, and coffinite.
Isotopes
All isotopes of uranium are radioactive. Three of these occur naturally, uranium-234, uranium-235, uranium-238. By far the most common is uranium-238, making up about 99.276% of uranium found in the Earth's crust. Uranium-238 also has the longest half life, about 4,468,000,000 years.
Isotopes are two or more forms of an element. Isotopes differ from each other according to their mass number. The number written to the right of the element's name is the mass number. The mass number represents the number of protons plus neutrons in the nucleus of an atom of the element. The number of protons determines the element, but the number of neutrons in the atom of any one element can vary. Each variation is an isotope.
The half life of a radioactive element is the time it takes for half of a sample of the element to break down. Imagine that the Earth's crust contains 100 million tonnes of uranium-238 today. Only half of a uranium-238 sample would remain 4,468,000,000 years from now (one half life). The remainder would have changed into other isotopes.
About a dozen other isotopes of uranium have been made artificially.
Extraction
Uranium is mined in much the same way iron is. Ore is removed from the earth, then treated with nitric acid to make uranyl nitrate (UO2(NO3)2). This compound is converted to uranium
dioxide (UO2). Finally, this compound is converted to pure uranium metal with hydrogen gas:
Uses and compounds
Uranium compounds have been used to color glass and ceramics for centuries. Scientists have found that glass made in Italy as early as A.D. 79 was colored with uranium oxide. They have been able to prove that the coloring was done intentionally.
Some uranium compounds were used for this purpose until quite recently. In fact, a popular type of dishware known as "Fiesta Ware" made in the 1930s and 1940s sometimes used uranium oxide as a coloring material. Other glassware, ceramics, and glazes also contained uranium oxide as a coloring agent.
Uranium compounds have had other limited uses. For example, they have been used as mordants in dyeing operations. A mordant is a material that helps a dye stick to cloth. Uranium oxide has also found limited application as an attachment to filaments in lightbulbs. The compound reduces the speed at which an electric current enters the bulb. This reduces the likelihood of the filament heating too fast and breaking.
None of these applications is of very much importance today, however. By far the most important application is in nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants. The reason for this importance is that one isotope of uranium, uranium-235, undergoes nuclear fission.
Nuclear fission is the process by which neutrons are fired at a target. The target is usually made of uranium atoms. When neutrons hit the target, they cause the nuclei of uranium atoms to break apart. Smaller elements are formed and very Large amounts of energy are given off.
When this reaction is carried out with no attempt to capture or control the energy, an enormous explosion takes place. This release of nuclear energy accounts for the power of a nuclear weapon such as an atomic bomb. In reactors, the energy released during fission is used to boil water. Steam is produced and is converted to electricity. The controlled release of nuclear energy takes place in a nuclear power plant.
Separating twins to make energy
S uppose neutrons are fired at a big block of uranium metal. Would nuclear fission occur? Would this be the way to make an atomic bomb? Could this process be used in a nuclear power plant?
The answer to all these questions is no. Only one isotope of uranium undergoes nuclear fission, uranium-235. The most common isotope, uranium-238, does not undergo fission. There is no way to make a bomb or a nuclear power plant with a chunk of natural uranium metal.
It is necessary is to increase the percentage of uranium-235 in the metal. As a chunk of uranium metal contains more uranium-235, it is more likely to undergo nuclear fission.
In making a bomb or a power plant, then, the first step is to separate the isotopes of uranium from each other. The goal is to produce more uranium-235 and less uranium-238.
hat goal sounds easy, but it is very difficult to do. All isotopes of uranium behave very much alike. They have the same chemical properties. The only way they differ from each other is by weight. An atom of uranium-238, for example, weighs about 1 percent more than an atom of uranium-235. That's not much of a difference.
Scientists separate these isotopes in a centrifuge. A centrifuge is a machine that spins containers of materials at very high speeds. They are like some of the rides at an amusement park. A person sits in a compartment at the end of a long arm. When the ride is turned on, the compartment spins around faster and faster.
In a centrifuge, heavier objects spin farther out than do lighter objects. A mixture of uranium-235 and uranium-238 can be separated slightly in a centrifuge. But the separation is not very good because the isotopes weigh almost the same amount.
In practice, a mixture of isotopes must be centrifuged many times. Each time, the separation gets better.
Scientists prepare enriched uranium by this method. Enriched uranium contains more uranium-235 and less uranium-238. Enriched uranium was used to make atomic bombs and is now used in nuclear power plants. It contains enough uranium-235 to allow nuclear fission to occur.
Today, over 400 nuclear power plants exist worldwide, producing about 17 percent of all electricity. Many people believe nuclear power will be more important in the future as the world's supply of coal, oil, and natural gas eventually runs out.
Other people are concerned about the dangers of nuclear power. The radiation released and radioactive wastes produced by nuclear power plants have made them unpopular in the United States. No new nuclear generators have been built for over ten years. It is not clear what the future of nuclear power plants in the United States will be.
Uranium poses an exceptional risk in powdered form. In this form, it tends to catch fire spontaneously.
Health effects
Since it is a radioactive element, uranium must be handled with great care. In addition, it poses an exceptional risk in powdered form. In this form, it tends to catch fire spontaneously.
Uranium
Uranium
Uranium—the element used as the primary fuel in nuclear reactors—is the metallic chemical element with an atomic number of 92. Its symbol is U, atomic weight is 238.0, and specific gravity is 18.95. It melts at 2,071.4° F (1,133° C) and boils at 6,904.4° F (3,818° C). All isotopes of uranium are radioactive. In total, natural uranium consists of three isotopes of mass numbers 234 (0.00054%), 235 (0.711%) and 238 (99.275%). All are radioactive. The most common, uranium-238 (U-238), is also the most stable with a half-life of 4.468 x 109 years. U-238 decays into thorium-234 through the decay of alpha particles or through spontaneous fission. About three-fourths of all known deposits of uranium in the Earth are found in Australia. However, Canada is the largest exporter country of uranium. As of October 2006, the United States produced 2.9 million pounds of uranium concentrate, a 45% increase over October 2005. However, mining experts are predicting that by 2015, uranium
mines in Wyoming could be producing over 10 million pounds annually.
History and applications
With the exception of tiny amounts of neptunium, uranium is the heaviest element found on the Earth— that is, the element with the highest atomic number and atomic weight. It has held that distinction ever since it was first recognized as an element by German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth (1743–1817) in 1789. Klaproth was analyzing the composition of pitchblende, which was thought at the time to be an ore of iron and zinc. Klaproth found, however, a small portion of pitchblende whose properties did not correspond to those of either of these elements. He decided that this portion was a new element. He proposed the name uranium for the element in honor of the planet Uranus, that had been discovered only a few years earlier in 1781.
Interestingly enough, Klaproth did not realize that uranium was radioactive. Indeed, the phenomenon of radioactivity was not to be discovered until nearly a century later. The material used widely by researchers interested in studying radioactivity at that time was pitchblende. Until 1896, when French physicist Henri Becquerel (1852–1908) discovered radioactivity, uranium remained a dull, uninteresting metal that found occasional use in making yellow glass. However, then, it acquired the distinction of being one of only two known elements that possessed the mysterious property of being radioactive. (The other element was thorium.) When nuclear fission was discovered in 1938, uranium suddenly became the most fateful element in the periodic table. Because of its ability to undergo nuclear fission with the release of huge amounts of energy, it became a brand-new source of power, which people would use for both peaceful and destructive purposes. Most of the more than 400 nuclear power plants that exist worldwide use uranium-235 as their fuel.
Aside from its nuclear properties of radioactivity and fission, uranium is literally dull; freshly cut uranium metal is silvery white, but it soon develops a dull gray color in air because of a thin coating of black uranium oxide.
Compounds of uranium have had some modest use for many centuries, primarily as a coloring agent for glass and ceramics. Scientists have found glass made in Italy as early as 79 AD that was colored with uranium oxide. Uranium compounds continue to have very limited application as mordants and as filaments in light bulbs.
In spite of its radioactivity, uranium has a few useful applications because it is so heavy. Having a density of 19.0 grams per cubic centimeter, it is almost as dense as gold (19.3) and platinum (21.5). However, it is much cheaper for two reasons: it is much more plentiful on Earth (40 or 50 times as abundant as silver) and it is a byproduct of the nuclear power industry after the very valuable uranium-235 isotope has been removed. It therefore finds some military uses in which a lot of weight is needed in a small space, such as for counterweights in aircraft control systems, ballast for missile reentry vehicles, and shielding against radiation.
Chemically, uranium is a member of the actinide series of elements, which runs from atomic number 89 (actinium) to atomic number 103 (lawrencium). Those with atomic numbers higher than uranium’s 92 are the transuranium elements. Uranium’s most important features lie not in its chemistry, but in its radioactivity and its ability to undergo nuclear fission.
Uranium’s radioactivity
Although uranium is indeed radioactive—the discovery of radioactivity occurred during a study of uranium’s properties—it has a very long half-life, which means that it emits its radiations at a rather leisurely pace. In addition, it emits mostly alpha particles, which do not travel very far through the air and will not even penetrate the skin. Its radiations are therefore not very harmful, and uranium and its compounds can be handled with a reasonable amount of care, like any other highly poisonous chemicals.
The half-life of the most abundant uranium isotope, uranium-238, is 4.47 × 109 years, or about 4.5 billion years, which happens to be equal to the approximate age of Earth as a planet. This fact allows scientists to use the disintegration of uranium as a sort of clock to determine the ages of rocks and other geological features of Earth.
Uranium-238 is the parent atom of a series of radioactive isotopes that scientists find associated with it in uranium ores. Through radioactive disintegrations, the uranium has been producing these daughter isotopes ever since the ore was laid down where people find it today. Uranium-235, which has a half-life of 7.04 × 108 (700 million) years, is the parent of another radioactive series. Among the daughters in these two series are various radioactive isotopes of radium, radon, and other elements. Both series of disintegrations proceed by producing consecutive radioactive isotopes until they wind up as stable isotopes of lead. Thus, the uranium isotopes are slowly turning into lead at a steady rate that is well known from their half-lives. By measuring the relative amounts of uranium and lead isotopes in a uranium-containing rock, scientists can calculate how old it is.
One of the disintegration products of uranium is radium, the element of atomic number 88. Radium was discovered by French scientist Marie Curie (1867–1934), who isolated it from a uranium ore. Another important disintegration product of uranium-238 is radon-222, which has a half-life of 3.8 days. Radon is a gas (a rare gas) that can diffuse out of uranium in the ground and seep into people’s houses. Radon can cause lung cancer because when inhaled, it can emit alpha particles directly in the lung, where they can do the most damage. Testing houses for radon gas has become an important precaution ever since this hazard was uncovered only 10 or 15 years ago.
The fission of uranium
By far the most important characteristic of uranium is that it undergoes the nuclear reaction called fission. Uranium-235, which is only about 0.7% of all uranium atoms, is the isotope that fissions most readily. For use in nuclear reactors, natural uranium is enriched in the 235 isotope (that is, the percentage of the 235 isotope is increased) by gaseous diffusion. In this process the uranium is converted into the gaseous compound uranium hexafluoride, UF6, and allowed to diffuse through a series of porous barriers. Those molecules which contain atoms of the slightly lighter uranium-235 isotope diffuse slightly faster and therefore separate themselves from the heavier, more slowly moving molecules that contain uranium-238.
See also Element, chemical.
Resources
BOOKS
Curie, Marie. Radioactive Substances. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2002.
Emsley, John. Nature’s Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the Elements. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Lide, D.R., ed. CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics.Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2001.
Lowenthal, Gerhart C. Practical Applications of Radioactivity and Nuclear Radiations: An Introductory Text for Engineers, Scientists, Teachers, and Students. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Moog, Richard Samuel. Chemistry:A Guide Inquiry. New York: Wiley, 2005.
Tro, Nivaldo J. Introductory Chemistry. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, 2006.
Siekierski, Slawomir. Concise Chemistry of the Elements.Chichester, UK: Horwood Publishing, 2002.
Robert L. Wolke
Uranium
Uranium
█ LARRY GILMAN
Uranium is a radioactive, metallic element with 92 protons and a variable number of neutrons in the nucleus of each atom. There are 16 isotopes of uranium, the most common being uranium-238 (238U). The second-commonest isotope of uranium, 235U, is used for building nuclear weapons, generating electricity, and propelling some submarines, aircraft carriers, and other vessels. Heat released by uranium decay also keeps Earth's interior hot, providing the energy for continental drift and volcanic eruptions.
Uranium was discovered in 1789 by German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth (1743–1817), and its property of radioactivity was discovered by French physicist Henri Becquerel (1852–1908) in 1896. 235U was first isolated in kilogram quantities by the United States during World War II, and was used in war by the United States in the bomb that destroyed the city of Hiroshima, Japan in 1945. Since that time uranium has been mined in many countries and purified in large quantities for both bombs and fuel. Worldwide, several hundred nuclear reactors produce electricity from uranium, while tens of thousands of nuclear weapons (mostly held by the United States and the Russian Federation) rely on uranium either as their primary explosive (in fission bombs) or as a trigger explosive (in fusion bombs).
Uranium atoms are unstable; that is, their nuclei tend spontaneously to fission or break down into smaller nuclei, fast particles (including neutrons), and high-energy photons. The fission of an isolated uranium nucleus is a randomly timed event; however, collision with a neutron may trigger a uranium nucleus to fission immediately. Crowding large numbers of uranium atoms together can enable the neutrons emitted by a few nuclei undergoing fission to cause other nuclei to fission, whose released neutrons in turn trigger still other nuclei, and so on. If this chain reaction proceeds at a constant rate, it may be used to generate electricity; if it proceeds at an exponentially increasing rate, a nuclear explosion results.
Only 0.71% of natural uranium is 235U, the major isotope directly useful for nuclear power and weapons. Many tons of ore must therefore be refined to produce a single kilogram of 235U. The amount of 235U needed to make a bomb, however, is not great: about 15 lb (7 kg). Quantities of uranium sufficient for many thousands of bombs are thus available around the world; some 21 countries export uranium, with Canada, Australia, and Niger being the three largest producers.
The most common isotope of uranium, 238U, comprises 99.28% of the uranium in the Earth's crust. 238U is comparatively stable, with a half-life of 4.5 billion years, and so is not directly useful for power and nuclear weapons. It is added to some antitank and antiaircraft ammunition to increase their density and thus their penetrating power. Depleted-uranium munitions, as these weapons are termed, were used extensively by the United States during the Gulf War of 1991 and in the Kosovo conflict of 1999. Because of their slight radioactivity, there is ongoing debate about whether they may cause long-term health problems in areas where they have been used.
238U is also a major ingredient of most reactor fuel. In reactor cores, this 238U is bombarded by neutrons, which transmute some of it into the element plutonium. Plutonium can be used directly for power and weapons; the first and third nuclear weapons ever exploded were produced by the United States using plutonium transmuted from 238U, and a number of other countries, including India, Israel, Pakistan, and North Korea, have developed the capability to obtain plutonium for bombs by the same means.
Both 235U and plutonium must be in fairly concentrated form for use in bomb manufacture. Alloys that have been diluted by 238U or other substances result in bulkier explosive devices; at sufficiently great dilution, a nuclear explosion is not obtainable. (However, some experts say that a nuclear explosion might be obtainable from an alloy that is as little as 10% 235U.) It follows that any organization that wishes to build an atomic weapon must either obtain fairly concentrated 235U or plutonium by purchase or theft, or obtain them in dilute form and then concentrate them.
These obstacles have been surmounted by a number of governments, and may eventually be surmounted by terrorist organizations. Illegal traffic in weapons-grade 235U and plutonium has accelerated since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, because its successor states have been too poor and disorganized to keep nuclear material secure. Some 600 tons, or enough for about 40,000 bombs, of raw weapons-grade fissionables are
stored in poorly guarded stockpiles in the Russian Federation and other states; small quantities have already entered the black market. On over 16 occasions since 1993, police in Asia, Europe, or South America have intercepted illegally held bomb-grade uranium or plutonium, most of it from ex-Soviet sources. In 1994, police seized a metal briefcase when a civilian jetliner from Moscow landed in Munich, Germany; the briefcase contained 363.4 grams of weapons-grade plutonium. In April 2000, almost a kilogram of bomb-grade uranium was seized in the Republic of Georgia. In 2001, police in Bogota, Colombia seized some 600 grams of bomb-grade 235U from the house of an animal feed salesman, the enrichment level of which corresponded to that of Russian fuel for submarines and icebreakers. And on September 11, 2001, four men were arrested in the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia in possession of almost 2 kilograms of bomb-grade 235U—a large fraction of the amount required for a bomb. Since that day, the idea that stolen uranium might be used for terrorist acts has gained increased attention.
Through its Material Protection, Control, and Accounting Program, the United States has spent about $550 million since 1993 to help safeguard uranium and plutonium stocks in Russia, supplying complete security systems or partial protection for about a third of the material considered most vulnerable by the U.S. Department of Energy.
█ FURTHER READING:
PERIODICALS:
Ladika, Susan. "Tracing the Shadowy Origins of Nuclear Contraband." Science no. 5522 (2001): 1634.
Stone, Richard. "Nuclear Trafficking: 'A Real and Dangerous Threat'." Science no. 5522 (2001): 1632–36.
SEE ALSO
Nuclear Power Plants, Security
Nuclear Reactors
Nuclear Weapons
Uranium
Uranium
Uranium is the metallic chemical element with an atomic number of 92. Its symbol is U, atomic weight is 238.0, and specific gravity is 18.95. It melts at 2,071.4°F (1,133°C) and boils at 6,904.4°F (3,818°C). Natural uranium consists of three isotopes of mass numbers 234 (0.00054%), 235 (0.711%) and 238 (99.275%). All are radioactive.
History and applications
With the exception of tiny amounts of neptunium, uranium is the heaviest element found on Earth—that is, the element with the highest atomic number and atomic weight. It has held that distinction ever since it was first recognized as an element by the German chemist Martin H. Klaproth in 1789, who named it uranium in honor of the new planet that had recently been discovered: Uranus . Until 1896, when Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity, uranium remained a dull, uninteresting metal that found occasional use in making yellow glass . But then it acquired the distinction of being one of only two known elements that possessed the mysterious property of being radioactive. (The other element was thorium.) When nuclear fission was discovered in 1938, uranium suddenly became the most fateful element in the periodic table . Because of its ability to undergo nuclear fission with the release of huge amounts of energy , it became a brand-new source of power, which people would use for both peaceful and destructive purposes.
Aside from its nuclear properties of radioactivity and fission, uranium is literally dull; freshly cut uranium metal is silvery white, but it soon develops a dull gray color in air because of a thin coating of black uranium oxide.
In spite of its radioactivity, uranium has a few useful applications because it is so heavy. Having a density of 19.0 grams per cubic centimeter, it is almost as dense as gold (19.3) and platinum (21.5). But it is much cheaper for two reasons: it is much more plentiful on Earth (40 or 50 times as abundant as silver) and it is a byproduct of the nuclear power industry after the very valuable uranium-235 isotope has been removed. It therefore finds some military uses in which a lot of weight is needed in a small space, such as for counterweights in aircraft control systems, ballast for missile reentry vehicles, and shielding against radiation .
Chemically, uranium is a member of the actinide series of elements, which runs from atomic number 89 (actinium) to atomic number 103 (lawrencium). Those with atomic numbers higher than uranium's 92 are the transuranium elements. Uranium's most important features lie not in its chemistry , but in its radioactivity and its ability to undergo nuclear fission.
Uranium's radioactivity
Although uranium is indeed radioactive—the discovery of radioactivity occurred during a study of uranium's properties—it has a very long half-life , which means that it emits its radiations at a rather leisurely pace. Also, it emits mostly alpha particles, which do not travel very far through the air and will not even penetrate the skin. Its radiations are therefore not very harmful, and uranium and its compounds can be handled with a reasonable amount of care, like any other highly poisonous chemicals.
The half-life of the most abundant uranium isotope, uranium-238, is 4.47 × 109 years, or about 4.5 billion years, which happens to be equal to the age of Earth as a planet. This fact allows scientists to use the disintegration of uranium as a sort of clock to determine the ages of rocks and other geological features of Earth.
Uranium-238 is the "parent" atom of a series of radioactive isotopes that we find associated with it in uranium ores. Through radioactive disintegrations, the uranium has been producing these "daughter" isotopes ever since the ore was laid down where we find it today. Uranium-235, which has a half-life of 7.04 × 108 (700 million) years, is the parent of another radioactive series. Among the daughters in these two series are various radioactive isotopes of radium, radon , and other elements. Both series of disintegrations proceed by producing consecutive radioactive isotopes until they wind up as stable isotopes of lead. Thus, the uranium isotopes are slowly turning into lead at a steady rate that is well-known from their half-lives. By measuring the relative amounts of uranium and lead isotopes in a uranium-containing rock, scientists can calculate how old it is.
One of the disintegration products of uranium is radium, the element of atomic number 88. Radium was discovered by Marie Curie (1867-1934), who isolated it from a uranium ore. Another important disintegration product of uranium-238 is radon-222, which has a half-life of 3.8 days. Radon is a gas (a rare gas) that can diffuse out of uranium in the ground and seep into people's houses. Radon can cause lung cancer because when inhaled, it can emit alpha particles directly in the lung, where they can do the most damage. Testing houses for radon gas has become an important precaution ever since this hazard was uncovered only 10 or 15 years ago.
The fission of uranium
By far the most important characteristic of uranium is that it undergoes the nuclear reaction called fission. Uranium-235, which is only about 0.7% of all uranium atoms , is the isotope that fissions most readily. For use in nuclear reactors, natural uranium is enriched in the 235 isotope (that is, the percentage of the 235 isotope is increased) by gaseous diffusion . In this process the uranium is converted into the gaseous compound uranium hexafluoride, UF6, and allowed to diffuse through a series of porous barriers. Those molecules which contain atoms of the slightly lighter uranium-235 isotope diffuse slightly faster and therefore separate themselves from the heavier, more slowly moving molecules that contain uranium-238.
See also Element, chemical.
Resources
books
Emsley, John. Nature's Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to theElements. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Greenwood, N.N., and A. Earnshaw. Chemistry of the Elements. 2nd ed. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann Press, 1997.
Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology. 4th ed. Suppl. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998.
Lide, D.R., ed. CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2001.
Robert L. Wolke
Uranium
Uranium
melting point: 1,408°C
boiling point: 4,404°C
density: 19.04 g/cm3
most common ions: U3+, U4+, UO2+, UO22+
Uranium is a very dense, highly reactive, metallic element that has the highest atomic mass of the naturally occurring elements. Natural uranium consists of two long-lived radioactive isotopes : 238U (99.28%) and 235U (0.72%). A very small amount of 234U (0.005%) occurs in secular equilibrium with 238U. Uranium was discovered in 1789 by Martin Klaproth, who named it after the planet Uranus (which had just been discovered). In 1841 Eugène Melchior Péligot prepared uranium metal and proved that Klaproth had actually isolated uranium dioxide.
Uranium is found in Earth's crust at an average concentration of about 2 ppm, and is more abundant than silver or mercury. The most common uranium-containing mineral is uraninite, a complex uranium oxide. Other uranium-containing minerals are autunite, a hydrated calcium uranium phosphate, and carnotite, a hydrated potassium uranium vanadate.
The most prevalent form of uranium in aqueous solution is the light yellow, fluorescent uranyl ion UO22+. The U4+ cation (green in solution) can be obtained by strong reduction of U(VI), but readily oxidizes back to UO22+ in air. The pentavalent ion UO2+ can be reversibly formed by reduction of UO22+, but it readily disproportionates into U(IV) and U(VI). The trivalent U3+ can be formed by reduction of U(IV) but is unstable to oxidation in aqueous solution.
After the discovery of uranium radioactivity by Henri Becquerel in 1896, uranium ores were used primarily as a source of radioactive decay products such as 226Ra. With the discovery of nuclear fission by Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman in 1938, uranium became extremely important as a source of nuclear energy. Hahn and Strassman made the experimental discovery; Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch provided the theoretical explanation. Enrichment of the spontaneous fissioning isotope 235U in uranium targets led to the development of the atomic bomb, and subsequently to the production of nuclear-generated electrical power. There are considerable amounts of uranium in nuclear waste throughout the world.
see also Actinium; Berkelium; Einsteinium; Fermium; Lawrencium; Mendelevium; Neptunium; Nobelium; Plutonium; Protactinium; Rutherfordium; Thorium.
W. Frank Kinard
Bibliography
Katz, Joseph J.; Seaborg, Glenn T.; and Morss, Lester T. (1986). The Chemistry of the Actinide Elements, 2nd edition. New York: Chapman and Hall.
Lide, David R., ed. (1995–1996). The CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 76th edition. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Uranium
Uranium
Uranium is a dense, silvery metallic element with the highest atomic mass of any naturally occurring element. It is the forty-seventh most abundant element in the earth's crust. All of the isotopes of uranium are radioactive, which accounts for a portion of the background radiation that is a natural part of the environment . In the 1930s, scientists discovered that one isotope of uranium, uranium-235, could be fissioned, or split. This information brought about a revolution in human society. The potential for nuclear fission is demonstrated by the fact that it has made possible not only the world's most destructive weapons, but also the generation of energy in a new way. Regardless of the purpose for which it is used, nuclear fission has created severe waste disposal problems which the world is struggling to solve.
See also High-level radioactive waste; Nuclear power; Nuclear weapons; Radioactive waste; Radioactivity
uranium
uranium
u·ra·ni·um / yoŏˈrānēəm/ • n. the chemical element of atomic number 92, a gray, dense radioactive metal used as a fuel in nuclear reactors. (Symbol: U)