Chemical Element: plutonium
(Modern Latin: named for the planet Pluto; radioactive metal)
Chemical-Element Information
Symbol: PuAtomic number: 94
Year discovered: 1940
Discovered by: Glenn Theodore Seaborg (1912-1999), American physicist and co-workers; Arthur Charles Wahl and Joseph W. Kennedy, Edwin Mc Millan
- Plutonium was synthesized by Seaborg, McMillan, Kennedy, and Wahl in 1940 by deuteron bombardment of uranium in a cyclotron (a device used to accelerate atomic particles) at Berkeley, California, USA.
- Plutonium was the second transuranium element of the actinide series to be discovered.
- 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.
- Plutonium occurs in nature in very small concentrations in uranium-bearing ores.
- Such plutonium was first detected, in Canadian pitchblende, by Seaborg and Morris L. Perlman in 1942.
- The main use of plutonium is in the production of nuclear (atomic) energy.
- It is a chemical element that is important in nuclear engineering and in the history of atomic weapons.
Name in other languages:
French: plutonium
German: Plutonium
Italian: plutonio
Spanish: plutonio
Information about other elements may be seen at this Chemical Elements List.
A special unit about words that include chemo-, chem- may be seen here.