Neptunium elements

Edwin McMillan and Philip Abelson obtain the first transuranium element, neptunium (element 93), by bombardment of uranium with neutrons. 

Neptunium. Neptunium, element 93, was first made in 1940, by E. M. McMillan and P. H. Abelson, at the University of California, by the reaction of a netitron with U238, to form and the subsequent emission of an electron from... 

Edwin M. McMillan and Phillip H. Abelson succeeded in synthesizing the first transuranium element, neptunium (element 93), at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1940. In 1941, Glenn T. Seaborg synthesized and identified element 94 (plutonium), and over the next several years, researchers under his direction at UC Berkeley discovered nine other transuranium elements. In 1945 Seaborg suggested that the elements heavier than element 89 (actinium) were misplaced as transition metals and should be relocated on the periodic table in a series below the transition metals... 

The new elements neptunium and plutonium have been produced in quantity by neutron bombardment of uranium. Subsequently many isotopes have been obtained by transmutation and synthetic isotopes of elements such as Ac and Pa are more easily obtained than the naturally occurring species. Synthetic species of lighter elements, e.g. Tc and Pm are also prepared. 

Initially, the only means of obtaining elements higher than uranium was by a-particle bombardment of uranium in the cyclotron, and it was by this means that the first, exceedingly minute amounts of neptunium and plutonium were obtained. The separation of these elements from other products and from uranium was difficult methods were devised involving co-precipitation of the minute amounts of their salts on a larger amount of a precipitate with a similar crystal structure (the carrier ). The properties were studied, using quantities of the order of 10 g in volumes of... 

Planet pluto) Plutonium was the second transuranium element of the actinide series to be discovered. The isotope 238pu was produced in 1940 by Seaborg, McMillan, Kennedy, and Wahl by deuteron bombardment of uranium in the 60-inch cyclotron at Berkeley, California. Plutonium also exists in trace quantities in naturally occurring uranium ores. It is formed in much the same manner as neptunium, by irradiation of natural uranium with the neutrons which are present. 

Because of the high rate of emission of alpha particles and the element being specifically absorbed on bone the surface and collected in the liver, plutonium, as well as all of the other transuranium elements except neptunium, are radiological poisons and must be handled with very special equipment and precautions. Plutonium is a very dangerous radiological hazard. Precautions must also be taken to prevent the unintentional formulation of a critical mass. Plutonium in liquid solution is more likely to become critical than solid plutonium. The shape of the mass must also be considered where criticality is concerned. 

A rather more specific mechanism of microbial immobilization of metal ions is represented by the accumulation of uranium as an extracellular precipitate of hydrogen uranyl phosphate by a Citrobacter species (83). Staggering amounts of uranium can be precipitated more than 900% of the bacterial dry weight Recent work has shown that even elements that do not readily form insoluble phosphates, such as nickel and neptunium, may be incorporated into the uranyl phosphate crystallites (84). The precipitation is driven by the production of phosphate ions at the cell surface by an external phosphatase. 

Each of the elements has a number of isotopes (2,4), all radioactive and some of which can be obtained in isotopicaHy pure form. More than 200 in number and mosdy synthetic in origin, they are produced by neutron or charged-particle induced transmutations (2,4). The known radioactive isotopes are distributed among the 15 elements approximately as follows actinium and thorium, 25 each protactinium, 20 uranium, neptunium, plutonium, americium, curium, californium, einsteinium, and fermium, 15 each herkelium, mendelevium, nobehum, and lawrencium, 10 each. There is frequently a need for values to be assigned for the atomic weights of the actinide elements. Any precise experimental work would require a value for the isotope or isotopic mixture being used, but where there is a purely formal demand for atomic weights, mass numbers that are chosen on the basis of half-life and availabiUty have customarily been used. A Hst of these is provided in Table 1. 

As it was the next element after uranium in the now extended periodic table it was named neptunium after Neptune, which is the next planet beyond Uranus. 

One of the major advances of science in the first half of this century was the synthesis of ten elements beyond uranium. Glenn T. Seaborg participated in the discovery oj most of these, a sufficient tribute to his outstanding ability as a scientist. For the first such discoveries, those of neptunium and plutonium, he shared with Professor Edwin M. McMillan the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 1951. 

The chemistry of plutonium is unique in the periodic table. This theme is exemplified throughout much of the research work that is described in this volume. Many of the properties of plutonium cannot be estimated accurately based on experiments with lighter elements, such as uranium and neptunium. Because massive amounts of plutonium have been and are being produced throughout the world, the need to define precisely its chemical and physical properties and to predict its chemical behavior under widely varying conditions will persist. In addition to these needs, there is an intrinsic fundamental interest in an element with so many unusual properties and with so many different oxidation states, each with its own chemistry. 

Several preparative methods do not use elemental mixtures. Group IIA-Pt intermetallic compounds have been prepared by reacting platinum metal with the group-IIA oxide under hydrogen or ammonia at 900-1200 C. Beryllium metal reacts with neptunium fluoride under vacuum at 1100-1200°C to form BC 3Np. 

Elements 43 (technetium), 61 (promethium), 85 (astatine), and all elements with Z > 92 do not exist naturally on the Earth, because no isotopes of these elements are stable. After the discovery of nuclear reactions early in the twentieth century, scientists set out to make these missing elements. Between 1937 and 1945, the gaps were filled and three actinides, neptunium (Z = 93), plutonium (Z = 94), and americium (Z = 95) also were made. 

Most of the larger actinides do not exist in nature. Scientists have created them artificially in the laboratory. Neptunium was first created in 1940, but lawrencium not until 1961. While these artificial elements are interesting, they are not particularly useful because they are so costly to make and because, being very unstable, they do not last very long. 

Fisher, N. S., P. Bjerregaard, and S. W. Fowler (1983), Interactions of Marine Plankton with Trans-uranic Elements. 1. Biokinetics of Neptunium, Plutonium, Americium, and Valifornium in Phytoplankton", Limnol. Oceanogr.28, 432. 

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