Actinides

Glenn T. Seaborg was born in Ishpeming, Sweden in 1912, into a family known publically as being intelligent. However, in 1922, the family moved to California in order to expand their opportunities. In high school, he had no interest in science. However, a science class was required for graduation. A teacher named Dwight Logan Reid is given credit for his interest in the field. Due to his family’s finances, the nearby University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) was his only option; due to its free tuition. Financial hardships were common throughout Seaborg’s childhood and early adulthood due to the Great Depression in 1929 to 1939. However, these financial barriers exhibited throughout the book represent Seaborg’s ability to succeed in the field of science despite all factors holding him back. Seaborg acknowledges and displays his hard work and dedication despite financial trouble throughout the book in his scientific accomplishments. During the summer prior to attending UCLA, he spent his summer working for a tire company in order to afford living expenses. He ultimately did whatever it took to succeed at UCLA. He accepted various jobs during his free time and over summer breaks and borrowed money from those close to him if he was unable to gain the money in time. Seaborg stated that chemistry came naturally to him, with the exception of organic chemistry, but the courses he was proudest of were the two he took in psychology. He spent as much time studying the professor…

know is not what it always was. Before our modern periodic table there was the periodic table that Dmitri Mendeleev constructed. There are many differences and similarities between the Modern Periodic Table and Mendeleev’s Periodic Table. Just for example, the modern periodic table arranges elements in order of increasing atomic number. Mendeleev’s ordered them based upon increasing atomic weight. Another difference is that the modern periodic table has some elements that Mendeleev had not…

Uranium is a chemical element that is naturally radioactive. Its symbol is U. Uranium is a radioactive silvery-white metallic element of the actinide series. Uranium has 235 isotopes. Most nuclear power plants use uranium as fuel because its atoms are easily split part. Uranium generates the heat in nuclear power reactors, and produces the fissile material for nuclear weapons. Deposits of uranium are found in China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Namibia, Greenland, South Africa, United…

These families, shown and labeled in figure 2, include alkali metals, alkaline earth metals, transition metals, non-metals, metalloids, halogen gases, noble gases, lanthanides (or rare earth metals), and actinides (or rare earth metals). The first family includes group 1 on the periodic table. These metals are extremely reactive as they have 1 electron in their outer orbits. Hydrogen is included in this group because it also has 1 electron in its outer orbit and shares the reactive traits of the…

In 1869, a chemist named Dmitri Mendeleev and a German chemist named Lothar Meyer proposed a “periodic table of elements” on the base of periodic repetition of properties. In 1864, before Mendeleev, and John Newlands arranged the elements in order of atomic mass where every eight elements has similar properties. He called the relationship “the law of octaves”. Even so, this law could not be applied for the elements beyond Calcium, so it was not accepted by the scientific community. The modern…

flexibility of use (since an area that is rural will very likely not need the energy that a huge reactor generates), offer smaller start-up costs than normal-sized nuclear reactors (reduces economic risk), and can be standardized (leading to a cheaper reactor that is comparatively easy to construct). Non-Proliferate Though nuclear proliferation is a danger, new ways of lowering it are being found in new designs. As for the last quote, here is a good one from Argonne National Laboratory, a…

Direct methane activation into chemicals and fuels can be compared to converting lead into gold, as methane is an inert molecule with few methods of selective transformation. Methane is a ubiquitous byproduct with the potential to create more efficient chemical syntheses and replace the current petrochemical feedstocks through less expensive and more readily-available alkanes . C-H bond activation frequently occurs at transition-metal centers , often with high selectivity and trivial conditions.…

fifth have eighteen, the sixth has thirty-two (or should but many of them are underneath the rest of the elements so as not to make the table too wide), and the seventh has nineteen (similar to the sixth period, many of them are below the rest ). There are then groups, which are vertical columns. They are organized by either Roman numerals but are now more commonly organized by numbers from one to eighteen which is referred to as the IUPAC system. The different elements falling under one…

of research, he made many discoveries and lead many social changes. He worked with Edwin McMillan, the discoverer of neptunium, Joseph Kennedy, and Arthur Wahl to make his most famous work, the discovery of plutonium. In 1941, the team used a 60 inch machine called a cyclotron, built by Ernest Lawrence, which collided a sample of uranium with deuterons and transmitted them into plutonium. The first visible amount of plutonium was isolated by himself along with Burris Cunningham and Louis Werner,…

actinium, and investigated its and radiothroium’s alpha-rays (“Otto Hahn Biographical”, Nobel Peace Prize Organization). After two years in Montreal, Hahn moved back to Germany, this time heading to Berlin’s Chemical Institute where he taught as a professor of chemistry. In 1907, Hahn discovered mesothorium, another radioactive isotope of thorium. Also in 1907, Hahn partnered with Lise Meitner, a nuclear physicist, who would come to work with him for thirty years and be involved with many of his…