Uranium

Uranium is a silver-gray metallic chemical element that has the symbol U and atomic number 92. It has 92 protons and 92 electrons, 6 of them valence electrons. It can have between 141 and 146 neutrons, with 146 and 143 in its most common isotopes. Uranium has the highest atomic weight of the naturally occurring elements, 238.02891. It occurs naturally in low concentrations in soil, rock and water, and is commercially extracted from uranium-bearing minerals such as uraninite, carnotite, autunite, uranophane, and tobernite. It is also found in phosphate rock, lignite, monazite sands, and can be recovered commercially from these sources.

In nature, uranium atoms exist as uranium-238 (99.284%), uranium-235 (0.711%), and a very small amount of uranium-234 (0.0058%). Uranium decays slowly by emitting an alpha particle. The half-life of uranium-238 is about 4.47 billion years and that of uranium-235 is 704 million years, making them useful in dating the age of the Earth. Contemporary uses of uranium exploit its unique nuclear properties. Uranium-235 has the distinction of being the only naturally occurring fissile isotope. Uranium-238 is both fissionable by fast neutrons, capable of being transmuted to fissile plutonium-239 in a nuclear reactor.

While uranium-238 has a small probability to fission when bombarded with fast neutrons, the much higher probability of uranium-235 to fission when bombarded with slow neutrons generates the heat in nuclear reactors used as a source of power, and provides the fissile material for nuclear weapons. Both uses rely on the ability of uranium to produce a sustained nuclear chain reaction. Depleted uranium (uranium-238) is used in kinetic energy penetrators in armor-piercing weapons.

The 1789 discovery of uranium in the mineral pitchblende is credited to Martin Heinrich Klaproth, who named the new element after the planet Uranus. Eugene-Melchior Peligot was the first person to isolate the metal, and its radioactive properties were uncovered in 1896 by Antoine Becquerel. Research by Enrico Fermi and others starting in 1934 led to its use as a fuel in the nuclear power industry and in Little Boy, the first nuclear weapon used in war.

Uranium:

• Atomic Number: 92


• Atomic Symbol: U


• Atomic Weight: 238.029


• Atomic Radius: 138.5 pm


• Melting Point: 1135 C


• Electron Configuration: [Rn]7s25f36d1