Uranium By Konrad Poker

General Information Uranium is a grey metal Its symbol is U, its atomic number is 92 Uranium can have between 141 – 146 neutrons and is the heaviest naturally occurring element The most common isotopes that can also be found in nature are uranium-238 with 146 neutrons and uranium-235 with 143 neutrons It is naturally found in low concentrations in water, rock and soil. Commercially it gets extracted from uranium bearing metals such as uraninite. Uranium is slightly radioactive and slowly decays by emitting alpha-particles. The half-life of uranium-238 is 4.47 billion years and that for uranium-235 is 704 million years.

History of Uranium Uranium was found in 1789 by the German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth in his laboratory in Berlin who It was named after the planet Uranus which was discovered eight years earlier The French professor Eugène-Melchior Pélligot in Paris was the first who isolated a sample of Uranium Martin Heinrich Klaproth Eugène-Melchior Pélligot

Uses Before the radioactivity of Uranium was know it was used to make uranium glass Uranium glass is a glass that contains about 1% - 1.3% of Uranium which gives it a yellow or yellow-green colour Another use for Uranium is in nuclear power plants which typically use fuel that is enriched with about 3% of uranium-235

Uranium is also military used The variation depleted uranium, which is Uranium that mostly contains uranium-238, is used for high-density penetrators which can destroy heavily armored targets and to harden armored vehicles Enriched Uranium is used for nuclear weapons In the Purex – Process the used Uranium gets enriched and split from the other burned metals to get enriched Uranium which is used in nuclear weapons

Common Reactions Uranium mostly occurs as 4+ or 6+ in nature The 6+ easily reacts to UO22+ which reacts with OH-, NO3- and SO42- All uranium-salt compounds, like UO2(NO3)2, are very toxic!!! The easier the compound gets dissolved the more toxic it is!!!!