Home History Basic Info Advanced Info and Uses References

History

            Plutonium was discovered by Glenn T. Seaborg, Edwin McMillan, Joseph W. Kennedy, and Arthur C. Wahl at the University of California in Berkeley in 1940, and was introduced publicly in 1946.

  (McMillan)                                                                                                                                                     (Seaborg)

    The scientists bombarded Uranium 238 with deuterons that were accelerated by a 60 inch cyclotron.  This (beta) decayed into neptunium, which in turn decayed into plutonium.

    Plutonium was the second transuranium element of the actinide series discovered, the first being neptunium.  The actinide series consists of 14 metallic radioactive elements in group III of the periodic table.  They range from element 90 to 103.  Elements in this series with a higher atomic number than uranium are called transuranium elements.

    The first was Plutonium was named after the planet Pluto.

Interesting Fact:

    In 1808 plutonium was suggested as a name for element 56 but Sir Humphrey Davy's original name of barium for element 56 still stands.