Plutonium and Other Actinide Elements

Moskalev YI, Levdik TI, Lyubchanskii ER, et al. 1975. Metabolism and biological effects in rodents of plutonium and other actinide elements. In Nygaard OF et al., ed. Radiation research Biomedical, chemical, and physical perspectives. New York, NY Academic Press, 1214-1232. 

Most radioactive particles and vapours, once deposited, are held rather firmly on surfaces, but resuspension does occur. A radioactive particle may be blown off the surface, or, more probably, the fragment of soil or vegetation to which it is attached may become airborne. This occurs most readily where soils and vegetation are dry and friable. Most nuclear bomb tests and experimental dispersions of fissile material have taken place in arid regions, but there is also the possibility of resuspension from agricultural and urban land, as an aftermath of accidental dispersion. This is particularly relevant to plutonium and other actinide elements, which are very toxic, and are absorbed slowly from the lung, but are poorly absorbed from the digestive tract. Inhalation of resuspended activity may be the most important route of human uptake for actinide elements, whereas entry into food chains is critical for fission products such as strontium and caesium. 

To designate isotopes of uranium, plutonium, and other actinide elements, it has become conventional to use two-digit subscripts, such as 49 for Pu, in which the first digit is the atomic number minus 90 and the second digit is the last digit of the mass number. 

Micro techniques have been very useful in chemical studies of the actinide elements, and particularly so for the study of the halides. Historically, micro methods were required because of the very small amounts of the synthetic actinides originally available for experiment. However, even when large amounts of neptunium, plutonium, and other actinide elements became available, micro methods were found to offer many advantages, and they have therefore continued to be of great service to this day. W. H. Zachariasen was able to obtain and interpret X-ray diffraction patterns on samples of the order of a few micrograms and the... 

Liquid wastes containing plutonium and other actinide elements may be detoxified by biological tteatment using Citrobacter species, isolated from metal-polluted soil (Plummer and Macaskie 1990). Metals in their trivalent state were most amenable to biodegradation. 

---