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    plutonium (Pu)

    A radioactive, silvery, metallic element, occurring in uranium ores and produced artificially by neutron bombardment of uranium. Plutonium has 15 isotopes with masses ranging from 232 to 246 and half-lives from 20 minutes to 76 million years. Plutonium is a radiological poison, specifically absorbed by bone marrow, and is used, especially the highly fissionable isotope plutonium-239, as a nuclear fuel.


    atomic number 94
    relative density 19.4
    melting point 639.5 °C (1,183 °F)
    boiling point 3,227 °C (5,841 °F)


    Plutonium was discovered in 1940 by the American researchers Seaborg, McMillan, Wahl, and Kennedy as the second transuranium element upon bombardment of uranium-238 with deuterons, thus forming Pu-238.


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       • ATOMIC AND NUCLEAR PHYSICS
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