text:
|General properties
|Name, symbol
|plutonium, Pu
|silvery white, tarnishing to dark gray in air
|Plutonium in the periodic table
|Atomic number
|Standard atomic weight
|Element category
|Group, block
|group n/a, f-block
|period 7
|Electron configuration
|[Rn] 5f6 7s2
|per shell
|2, 8, 18, 32, 24, 8, 2
|Physical properties
|Melting point
|Boiling point
|Density near r.t.
|19.816 g·cm−3
|liquid, at m.p.
|16.63 g·cm−3
|Heat of fusion
|2.82 kJ·mol−1
|Heat of vaporization
|333.5 kJ·mol−1
|Molar heat capacity
|35.5 J·mol−1·K−1
|vapor pressure
|Atomic properties
|Oxidation states
|8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 (an amphoteric oxide)
|Pauling scale: 1.28
|Ionization energies
|1st: 584.7 kJ·mol−1
|Atomic radius
|empirical: 159 pm
|Covalent radius
|187±1 pm
|Crystal structure
|Speed of sound
|2260 m·s−1
|Thermal expansion
|46.7 µm·m−1·K−1 (at 25 °C)
|Thermal conductivity
|6.74 W·m−1·K−1
|Electrical resistivity
|at 0 °C: 1.460 µΩ·m
|Magnetic ordering
|Young's modulus
|96 GPa
|Shear modulus
|43 GPa
|Poisson ratio
|CAS number
|after dwarf planet Pluto, itself named after classical god of the underworld Pluto
|Glenn T. Seaborg, Arthur Wahl, Joseph W. Kennedy, Edwin McMillan (1940–1)
|Most stable isotopes
Plutonium is a transuranic radioactive chemical element with symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibits six allotropes and four oxidation states. It reacts with carbon, halogens, nitrogen, silicon and hydrogen. When exposed to moist air, it forms oxides and hydrides that expand the sample up to 70% in volume, which in turn flake off as a powder that can spontaneously ignite. It is radioactive and can accumulate in the bones. These properties make the handling of plutonium dangerous.
Plutonium is the heaviest primordial element by virtue of its most stable isotope, plutonium-244, whose half-life of about 80 million years is just long enough for the element to be found in trace quantities in nature.[3] Plutonium is mostly a byproduct of nuclear reactions in reactors where some of the neutrons released by the fission process convert uranium-238 nuclei into plutonium.[4]
Both plutonium-239 and plutonium-241 are fissile, meaning that they can sustain a nuclear chain reaction, leading to applications in nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors. Plutonium-240 exhibits a high rate of spontaneous fission, raising the neutron flux of any sample containing it.[clarification needed] The presence of plutonium-240 limits a plutonium sample's usability for weapons or its quality as reactor fuel, and the percentage of plutonium-240 determines its grade (weapons grade, fuel grade, or reactor grade).
Plutonium-238 has a half-life of 88 years and emits alpha particles. It is a heat source in radioisotope thermoelectric generators, which are used to power some spacecraft. Plutonium isotopes are expensive and inconvenient to separate, so particular isotopes are usually manufactured in specialized reactors.
A team led by Glenn T. Seaborg and Edwin McMillan at the University of California, Berkeley, first synthesized plutonium in 1940 by bombarding uranium-238 with deuterons. Trace amounts of plutonium were subsequently discovered in nature. Producing plutonium in useful quantities for the first time was a major part of the Manhattan Project during World War II, which developed the first atomic bombs. The first nuclear test, "Trinity" (July 1945), and the second atomic bomb used to destroy a city (Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945), "Fat Man", both had cores of plutonium-239. Human radiation experiments studying plutonium were conducted without informed consent, and several criticality accidents, some lethal, occurred during and after the war. Disposal of plutonium waste from nuclear power plants and dismantled nuclear weapons built during the Cold War is a nuclear-proliferation and environmental concern. Other sources of plutonium in the environment are fallout from numerous above-ground nuclear tests (now banned).
- 1 Characteristics
- 2 History
- 3 Applications
- 4 Precautions
- 5 Transportation
- 6 See also
- 7 Notes
- 8 References
- 9 External links
Physical properties
Plutonium, like most metals, has a bright silvery appearance at first, much like nickel, but it oxidizes very quickly to a dull gray, although yellow and olive green are also reported.[5][6] At room temperature plutonium is in its α form (alpha). This, the most common structural form of the element (allotrope), is about as hard and brittle as grey cast iron unless it is alloyed with other metals to make it soft and ductile. Unlike most metals, it is not a good conductor of heat or electricity. It has a low melting point (640 °C) and an unusually high boiling point (3,228 °C).[5]
Alpha decay, the release of a high-energy helium nucleus, is the most common form of radioactive decay for plutonium.[7] A 5 kg mass of 239Pu contains about 12.5×1024 atoms. With a half-life of 24,100 years, about 11.5×1012 of its atoms decay each second by emitting a 5.157 MeV alpha particle. This amounts to 9.68 watts of power. Heat produced by the deceleration of these alpha particles makes it warm to the touch.[8][9]
Resistivity is a measure of how strongly a material opposes the flow of electric current. The resistivity of plutonium at room temperature is very high for a metal, and it gets even higher with lower temperatures, which is unusual for metals.[10] This trend continues down to 100 K, below which resistivity rapidly decreases for fresh samples.[10] Resistivity then begins to increase with time at around 20 K due to radiation damage, with the rate dictated by the isotopic composition of the sample.[10]
Because of self-irradiation, a sample of plutonium fatigues throughout its crystal structure, meaning the ordered arrangement of its atoms becomes disrupted by radiation with time.[11] Self-irradiation can also lead to annealing which counteracts some of the fatigue effects as temperature increases above 100 K.[12]
Unlike most materials, plutonium increases in density when it melts, by 2.5%, but the liquid metal exhibits a linear decrease in density with temperature.[10] Near the melting point, the liquid plutonium has also very high viscosity and surface tension as compared to other metals.[11]
Plutonium normally has six allotropes and forms a seventh (zeta, ζ) at high temperature within a limited pressure range.[13] These allotropes, which are different structural modifications or forms of an element, have very similar internal energies but significantly varying densities and crystal structures. This makes plutonium very sensitive to changes in temperature, pressure, or chemistry, and allows for dramatic volume changes following phase transitions from one allotropic form to another.[11] The densities of the different allotropes vary from 16.00 g/cm3 to 19.86 g/cm3.[14]
The presence of these many allotropes makes machining plutonium very difficult, as it changes state very readily. For example, the α form exists at room temperature in unalloyed plutonium. It has machining characteristics similar to cast iron but changes to the plastic and malleable β form (beta) at slightly higher temperatures.[15] The reasons for the complicated phase diagram are not entirely understood. The α form has a low-symmetry monoclinic structure, hence its brittleness, strength, compressibility, and poor thermal conductivity.[13]
Plutonium in the δ form normally exists in the 310 °C to 452 °C range but is stable at room temperature when alloyed with a small percentage of gallium, aluminium, or cerium, enhancing workability and allowing it to be welded.[15] The delta form has more typical metallic character, and is roughly as strong and malleable as aluminium.[13] In fission weapons, the explosive shock waves used to compress a plutonium core will also cause a transition from the usual delta phase plutonium to the denser alpha form, significantly helping to achieve supercriticality.[16] The ε phase, the highest temperature solid allotrope, exhibits anomalously high atomic self-diffusion compared to other elements.[11]
Nuclear fission
Plutonium is a radioactive actinide metal whose isotope, plutonium-239, is one of the three primary fissile isotopes[17] (uranium-233 and uranium-235 are the other two);[18] plutonium-241 is also highly fissile. To be considered fissile, an isotope's atomic nucleus must be able to break apart or fission when struck by a slow moving neutron and to release enough additional neutrons to sustain the nuclear chain reaction by splitting further nuclei.
Pure plutonium-239 may have a multiplication factor (keff) larger than one, which means that if the metal is present in sufficient quantity and with an appropriate geometry (e.g., a sphere of sufficient size), it can form a critical mass.[19] During fission, a fraction of the binding energy, which holds a nucleus together, is released as a large amount of electromagnetic and kinetic energy (much of the latter being quickly converted to thermal energy). Fission of a kilogram of plutonium-239 can produce an explosion equivalent to 21,000 tons of TNT (88,000 GJ).[8] It is this energy that makes plutonium-239 useful in nuclear weapons and reactors.
The presence of the isotope plutonium-240 in a sample limits its nuclear bomb potential, as plutonium-240 has a relatively high spontaneous fission rate (~440 fissions per second per gram—over 1,000 neutrons per second per gram),[20] raising the background neutron levels and thus increasing the risk of predetonation.[21] Plutonium is identified as either weapons-grade, fuel grade, or power reactor grade based on the percentage of plutonium-240 that it contains. Weapons-grade plutonium contains less than 7% plutonium-240. Fuel grade plutonium contains from 7% to less than 19%, and power reactor grade contains 19% or more plutonium-240. Supergrade plutonium, with less than 4% of plutonium-240, is used in U.S. Navy weapons stored in proximity to ship and submarine crews, due to its lower radioactivity.[22] The isotope plutonium-238 is not fissile but can undergo nuclear fission easily with fast neutrons as well as alpha decay.[8]
Isotopes and synthesis
Twenty radioactive isotopes of plutonium have been characterized. The longest-lived are plutonium-244, with a half-life of 80.8 million years, plutonium-242, with a half-life of 373,300 years, and plutonium-239, with a half-life of 24,110 years. All of the remaining radioactive isotopes have half-lives that are less than 7,000 years. This element also has eight metastable states, though all have half-lives less than one second.[7]
The isotopes of plutonium range in mass number from 228 to 247. The primary decay modes of isotopes with mass numbers lower than the most stable isotope, plutonium-244, are spontaneous fission and α emission, mostly forming uranium (92 protons) and neptunium (93 protons) isotopes as decay products (neglecting the wide range of daughter nuclei created by fission processes). The primary decay mode for isotopes with mass numbers higher than plutonium-244 is β emission, mostly forming americium (95 protons) isotopes as decay products. Plutonium-241 is the parent isotope of the neptunium decay series, decaying to americium-241 via β or electron emission.[7][23]
Plutonium-238 and 239 are the most widely synthesized isotopes.[8] Plutonium-239 is synthesized via the following reaction using uranium (U) and neutrons (n) via beta decay (β−) with neptunium (Np) as an intermediate:[24]
Neutrons from the fission of uranium-235 are captured by uranium-238 nuclei to form uranium-239; a beta decay converts a neutron into a proton to form Np-239 (half-life 2.36 days) and another beta decay forms plutonium-239.[25] Workers on the Tube Alloys project had predicted this reaction theoretically in 1940.
Plutonium-238 is synthesized by bombarding uranium-238 with deuterons (D, the nuclei of heavy hydrogen) in the following reaction:[26]
In this process, a deuteron hitting uranium-238 produces two neutrons and neptunium-238, which spontaneously decays by emitting negative beta particles to form plutonium-238.
Decay heat and fission properties
Plutonium isotopes undergo radioactive decay, which produces decay heat. Different isotopes produce different amounts of heat per mass. The decay heat is usually listed as watt/kilogram, or milliwatt/gram. In case of larger pieces of plutonium (e.g. a weapon pit) and inadequate heat removal the resulting self-heating may be significant. All isotopes produce weak gamma on decay.
|Decay mode
|Half-life (years)
|Decay heat (W/kg)
|Spontaneous fission neutrons (1/(g·s))
|alpha to 234U
|Very high decay heat. Even in small amounts can cause significant self-heating. Used on its own in radioisotope thermoelectric generators.
|alpha to 235U
|The principal fissile isotope in use.
|alpha to 236U, spontaneous fission
|The principal impurity in samples of the 239Pu isotope. The plutonium grade is usually listed as percentage of 240Pu. High spontaneous fission hinders use in nuclear weapons.
|beta-minus, to 241Am
|Decays to americium-241; its buildup presents a radiation hazard in older samples.
|alpha to 238U
Americium-241, the decay product of plutonium-241, has half-life of 430 years, 1.2 spontaneous fissions per gram per second, and decay heat of 114 watts per kilogram. As its decay produces highly penetrative gamma rays, its presence in plutonium, determined by the original concentration of plutonium-241 and the sample age, increases the radiation exposure of surrounding structures and personnel.
Compounds and chemistry
At room temperature, pure plutonium is silvery in color but gains a tarnish when oxidized.[28] The element displays four common ionic oxidation states in aqueous solution and one rare one:[14]
- Pu(III), as Pu3+ (blue lavender)
- Pu(IV), as Pu4+ (yellow brown)
- Pu(V), as PuO+
2 (light pink)[note 1]
- Pu(VI), as PuO2+
2 (pink orange)
- Pu(VII), as PuO3−
5 (green)–the heptavalent ion is rare
The color shown by plutonium solutions depends on both the oxidation state and the nature of the acid anion.[29] It is the acid anion that influences the degree of complexing—how atoms connect to a central atom—of the plutonium species.
Metallic plutonium is produced by reacting plutonium tetrafluoride with barium, calcium or lithium at 1200 °C.[30] It is attacked by acids, oxygen, and steam but not by alkalis and dissolves easily in concentrated hydrochloric, hydroiodic and perchloric acids.[31] Molten metal must be kept in a vacuum or an inert atmosphere to avoid reaction with air.[15] At 135 °C the metal will ignite in air and will explode if placed in carbon tetrachloride.[32]
Plutonium is a reactive metal. In moist air or moist argon, the metal oxidizes rapidly, producing a mixture of oxides and hydrides.[5] If the metal is exposed long enough to a limited amount of water vapor, a powdery surface coating of PuO2 is formed.[5] Also formed is plutonium hydride but an excess of water vapor forms only PuO2.[31]
Plutonium shows enormous, and reversible, reaction rates with pure hydrogen, forming plutonium hydride.[11] It also reacts readily with oxygen, forming PuO and PuO2 as well as intermediate oxides; plutonium oxide fills 40% more volume than plutonium metal. The metal reacts with the halogens, giving rise to compounds with the general formula PuX3 where X can be F, Cl, Br or I and PuF4 is also seen. The following oxyhalides are observed: PuOCl, PuOBr and PuOI. It will react with carbon to form PuC, nitrogen to form PuN and silicon to form PuSi2.[14][32]
Powders of plutonium, its hydrides and certain oxides like Pu2O3 are pyrophoric, meaning they can ignite spontaneously at ambient temperature and are therefore handled in an inert, dry atmosphere of nitrogen or argon. Bulk plutonium ignites only when heated above 400 °C. Pu2O3 spontaneously heats up and transforms into PuO2, which is stable in dry air, but reacts with water vapor when heated.[34]
Crucibles used to contain plutonium need to be able to withstand its strongly reducing properties. Refractory metals such as tantalum and tungsten along with the more stable oxides, borides, carbides, nitrides and silicides can tolerate this. Melting in an electric arc furnace can be used to produce small ingots of the metal without the need for a crucible.[15]
Cerium is used as a chemical simulant of plutonium for development of containment, extraction, and other technologies.[35]
Electronic structure
Plutonium is an element in which the 5f electrons are the transition border between delocalized and localized; it is therefore considered one of the most complex elements.[36] The anomalous behavior of plutonium is caused by its electronic structure. The energy difference between the 6d and 5f subshells is very low. The size of the 5f shell is just enough to allow the electrons to form bonds within the lattice, on the very boundary between localized and bonding behavior. The proximity of energy levels leads to multiple low-energy electron configurations with near equal energy levels. This leads to competing 5fn7s2 and 5fn−16d17s2 configurations, which causes the complexity of its chemical behavior. The highly directional nature of 5f orbitals is responsible for directional covalent bonds in molecules and complexes of plutonium.[11]
Plutonium can form alloys and intermediate compounds with most other metals. Exceptions include lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium and caesium of the alkali metals; and magnesium, calcium, strontium, and barium of the alkaline earth metals; and europium and ytterbium of the rare earth metals.[31] Partial exceptions include the refractory metals chromium, molybdenum, niobium, tantalum, and tungsten, which are soluble in liquid plutonium, but insoluble or only slightly soluble in solid plutonium.[31] Gallium, aluminium, americium, scandium and cerium can stabilize the δ phase of plutonium for room temperature. Silicon, indium, zinc and zirconium allow formation of metastable δ state when rapidly cooled. High amounts of hafnium, holmium and thallium also allows retaining some of the δ phase at room temperature. Neptunium is the only element that can stabilize the α phase at higher temperatures.[11]
Plutonium alloys can be produced by adding a metal to molten plutonium. If the alloying metal is sufficiently reductive, plutonium can be added in the form of oxides or halides. The δ phase plutonium-gallium and plutonium-aluminium alloys are produced by adding plutonium(III) fluoride to molten gallium or aluminium, which has the advantage of avoiding dealing directly with the highly reactive plutonium metal.[37]
- Plutonium-gallium is used for stabilizing the δ phase of plutonium, avoiding the α-phase and α-δ related issues. Its main use is in pits of implosion nuclear weapons.[38]
- Plutonium-aluminium is an alternative to the Pu-Ga alloy. It was the original element considered for δ phase stabilization, but its tendency to react with the alpha particles and release neutrons reduces its usability for nuclear weapon pits. Plutonium-aluminium alloy can be also used as a component of nuclear fuel.[39]
- Plutonium-gallium-cobalt alloy (PuCoGa5) is an unconventional superconductor, showing superconductivity below 18.5 kelvin, an order of magnitude higher than the highest between heavy fermion systems, and has large critical current.[36][40]
- Plutonium-zirconium alloy can be used as nuclear fuel.[41]
- Plutonium-cerium and plutonium-cerium-cobalt alloys are used as nuclear fuels.[42]
- Plutonium-uranium, with about 15–30 mol.% plutonium, can be used as a nuclear fuel for fast breeder reactors. Its pyrophoric nature and high susceptibility to corrosion to the point of self-igniting or disintegrating after exposure to air require alloying with other components. Addition of aluminium, carbon or copper did not improve disintegration rates markedly, zirconium and iron alloys have better corrosion resistance but they disintegrate in several months in air as well. Addition of titanium and/or zirconium significantly increases the melting point of the alloy.[43]
- Plutonium-uranium-titanium and plutonium-uranium-zirconium were investigated for use as nuclear fuels. The addition of the third element increases corrosion resistance, reduces flammability, and improves ductility, fabricability, strength, and thermal expansion. Plutonium-uranium-molybdenum has the best corrosion resistance, forming a protective film of oxides, but titanium and zirconium are preferred for physics reasons.[43]
- Thorium-uranium-plutonium was investigated as a nuclear fuel for fast breeder reactors.[43]
Trace amounts of at least three plutonium isotopes (plutonium-238, 239, and 244) can be found in nature. Small traces of plutonium-239, a few parts per trillion, and its decay products are naturally found in some concentrated ores of uranium,[44] such as the natural nuclear fission reactor in Oklo, Gabon.[45] The ratio of plutonium-239 to uranium at the Cigar Lake Mine uranium deposit ranges from 2.4×10−12 to 44×10−12.[46] Even smaller amounts of primordial plutonium-244 occur naturally due to its relatively long half-life of about 80 million years.[47] These trace amounts of 239Pu originate in the following fashion: On rare occasions, 238U undergoes spontaneous fission, and in the process, the nucleus emits one or two free neutrons with some kinetic energy. When one of these neutrons strikes the nucleus of another 238U atom, it is absorbed by the atom, which becomes 239U. With a relatively short half-life, 239U decays to neptunium-239 (239Np), and then 239Np decays into 239Pu.
Because the relatively long-lived isotope plutonium-240 occurs in the decay chain of plutonium-244 it should also be present, albeit 10,000 times rarer still. Finally, exceedingly small amounts of plutonium-238, attributed to the extremely rare double beta decay of uranium-238, have been found in natural uranium samples.[48]
Minute traces of plutonium are usually found in the human body due to the 550 atmospheric and underwater nuclear tests that have been carried out, and to a small number of major nuclear accidents. Most atmospheric and underwater nuclear testing was stopped by the Limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963, which was signed and ratified by the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and other nations. Continued atmospheric nuclear weapons testing since 1963 by non-treaty nations included those by China (atomic bomb test above the Gobi Desert in 1964, hydrogen bomb test in 1967, and follow-on tests), and France (tests as recently as the 1990s). Because it is deliberately manufactured for nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors, plutonium-239 is the most abundant isotope of plutonium by far.[32]
Enrico Fermi and a team of scientists at the University of Rome reported that they had discovered element 94 in 1934.[49] Fermi called the element hesperium and mentioned it in his Nobel Lecture in 1938.[50] The sample was actually a mixture of barium, krypton, and other elements, but this was not known at the time because nuclear fission had not been discovered yet.[51]
The breakthrough with plutonium was at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge by Egon Bretscher and Norman Feather. They realized that a slow neutron reactor fuelled with uranium would theoretically produce substantial amounts of plutonium-239 as a by-product. This is because U-238 absorbs slow neutrons and forms a new isotope U-239. The new isotope's nucleus rapidly emits an electron through beta decay producing a new element with a mass of 239 and an atomic number of 93. This element's nucleus then also emits an electron and becomes a new element of mass 239 but with an atomic number 94 and a much greater half-life. Bretscher and Feather showed theoretically feasible grounds that element 94 would be readily 'fissionable' by both slow and fast neutrons, and had the added advantage of being chemically different from uranium, and could easily be separated from it.
This new development was also confirmed in independent work by Edwin M. McMillan and Philip Abelson at Berkeley Radiation Laboratory also in 1940. Nicholas Kemmer of the Cambridge team proposed the names neptunium for the new element 93 and plutonium for 94 by analogy with the outer planets Neptune and Pluto beyond Uranus (uranium being element 92). The Americans fortuitously suggested the same names.
Plutonium (specifically, plutonium-238) was first produced and isolated on December 14, 1940, and chemically identified on February 23, 1941, by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg, Edwin M. McMillan, J. W. Kennedy, and A. C. Wahl by deuteron bombardment of uranium in the 60-inch (150 cm) cyclotron at the University of California, Berkeley.[52][53] In the 1940 experiment, neptunium-238 was created directly by the bombardment but decayed by beta emission with a half-life of a little over two days, which indicated the formation of element 94.[32]
A paper documenting the discovery was prepared by the team and sent to the journal Physical Review in March 1941.[32] The paper was withdrawn before publication after the discovery that an isotope of the new element (plutonium-239) could undergo nuclear fission in a way that might be useful in an atomic bomb. Publication was delayed until a year after the end of World War II due to security concerns.[17]
Edwin McMillan had recently named the first transuranium element after the planet Neptune and suggested that element 94, being the next element in the series, be named for what was then considered the next planet, Pluto.[8][note 2] Seaborg originally considered the name "plutium", but later thought that it did not sound as good as "plutonium."[54] He chose the letters "Pu" as a joke, which passed without notice into the periodic table.[note 3] Alternative names considered by Seaborg and others were "ultimium" or "extremium" because of the erroneous belief that they had found the last possible element on the periodic table.[55]
Early research
The basic chemistry of plutonium was found to resemble uranium after a few months of initial study.[32] Early research was continued at the secret Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago. On August 20, 1942, a trace quantity of this element was isolated and measured for the first time. About 50 micrograms of plutonium-239 combined with uranium and fission products was produced and only about 1 microgram was isolated.[44][56] This procedure enabled chemists to determine the new element's atomic weight.[57][note 4]
In November 1943 some plutonium trifluoride was reduced to create the first sample of plutonium metal: a few micrograms of metallic beads.[44] Enough plutonium was produced to make it the first synthetically made element to be visible with the unaided eye.[58]
The nuclear properties of plutonium-239 were also studied; researchers found that when it is hit by a neutron it breaks apart (fissions) by releasing more neutrons and energy. These neutrons can hit other atoms of plutonium-239 and so on in an exponentially fast chain reaction. This can result in an explosion large enough to destroy a city if enough of the isotope is concentrated to form a critical mass.[32]
Production during the Manhattan Project
During World War II the U.S. government established the Manhattan Project, which was tasked with developing an atomic bomb. The three primary research and production sites of the project were the plutonium production facility at what is now the Hanford Site, the uranium enrichment facilities at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and the weapons research and design laboratory, now known as Los Alamos National Laboratory.[59]
The first production reactor that made plutonium-239 was the X-10 Graphite Reactor. It went online in 1943 and was built at a facility in Oak Ridge that later became the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.[32][note 5]
On April 5, 1944, Emilio Segrè at Los Alamos received the first sample of reactor-produced plutonium from Oak Ridge.[60] Within ten days, he discovered that reactor-bred plutonium had a higher concentration of the isotope plutonium-240 than cyclotron-produced plutonium. Plutonium-240 has a high spontaneous fission rate, raising the overall background neutron level of the plutonium sample. The original gun-type plutonium weapon, code-named "Thin Man", had to be abandoned as a result—the increased number of spontaneous neutrons meant that nuclear pre-detonation (a fizzle) would be likely.
The entire plutonium weapon design effort at Los Alamos was soon changed to the more complicated implosion device, code-named "Fat Man." With an implosion weapon, a solid (or, in later designs, hollow) sphere of plutonium is compressed to a high density with explosive lenses—a technically more daunting task than the simple gun-type design, but necessary to use plutonium for weapons purposes. (Enriched uranium, by contrast, can be used with either method.)[60]
Construction of the Hanford B Reactor, the first industrial-sized nuclear reactor for the purposes of material production, was completed in March 1945. B Reactor produced the fissile material for the plutonium weapons used during World War II.[note 6] B, D and F were the initial reactors built at Hanford, and six additional plutonium-producing reactors were built later at the site.[61]
In the 2013 book, Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters (Oxford), Kate Brown explores the health of affected citizens in the United States, and the "slow-motion disasters" that still threaten the environments where the plutonium production plants are located. According to Brown, the plants at Hanford (and Mayak in the USSR), over a period of four decades, "both released more than 200 million curies of radioactive isotopes into the surrounding environment -- twice the amount expelled in the Chernobyl disaster in each instance".[62] Most of this radioactive contamination over the years were part of normal operations, but unforeseen accidents did occur and plant management kept this secret, as the pollution continued unabated. Even today, as pollution threats to health and the environment persist, the government keeps knowledge about the associated risks from the public.[62]
In 2004, a safe was discovered during excavations of a burial trench at the Hanford nuclear site. Inside the safe were various items, including a large glass bottle containing a whitish slurry which was subsequently identified as the oldest sample of weapons-grade plutonium known to exist. Isotope analysis by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory indicated that the plutonium in the bottle was manufactured in the X-10 reactor at Oak Ridge during 1944.[63][64][65]
Trinity and Fat Man atomic bombs
The first atomic bomb test, codenamed "Trinity" and detonated on July 16, 1945, near Alamogordo, New Mexico, used plutonium as its fissile material.[44] The implosion design of "the gadget", as the Trinity device was code-named, used conventional explosive lenses to compress a sphere of plutonium into a supercritical mass, which was simultaneously showered with neutrons from the "Urchin", an initiator made of polonium and beryllium (neutron source: (α, n) reaction).[32] Together, these ensured a runaway chain reaction and explosion. The overall weapon weighed over 4 tonnes, although it used just 6.2 kg of plutonium in its core.[66] About 20% of the plutonium used in the Trinity weapon underwent fission, resulting in an explosion with an energy equivalent to approximately 20,000 tons of TNT.[67][note 7]
An identical design was used in the "Fat Man" atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945, killing approximately 35,000 people, including 23,200-28,200 Japanese civilian munitions workers and 150 Japanese soldiers, and destroying 68%-80% of industrial production.[68][69] The "Little Boy" bomb dropped on Hiroshima three days earlier used uranium-235, not plutonium. Japan capitulated on August 15 to General Douglas MacArthur. Only after the announcement of the first atomic bombs was the existence of plutonium made public.
Cold War use and waste
Large stockpiles of weapons-grade plutonium were built up by both the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War. The U.S. reactors at Hanford and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina produced 103 tonnes,[70] and an estimated 170 tonnes of military-grade plutonium was produced in USSR.[71][note 8] Each year about 20 tonnes of the element is still produced as a by-product of the nuclear power industry.[14] As much as 1000 tonnes of plutonium may be in storage with more than 200 tonnes of that either inside or extracted from nuclear weapons.[32] SIPRI estimated the world plutonium stockpile in 2007 as about 500 tons, divided equally between weapon and civilian stocks.[72]
Since the end of the Cold War these stockpiles have become a focus of nuclear proliferation concerns. In the U.S., some plutonium extracted from dismantled nuclear weapons is melted to form glass logs of plutonium oxide that weigh two tonnes.[32] The glass is made of borosilicates mixed with cadmium and gadolinium.[note 9] These logs are planned to be encased in stainless steel and stored as much as 4 km (2 mi) underground in bore holes that will be back-filled with concrete.[32] As of 2008, the only facility in the U.S. that was scheduled to store plutonium in this way was the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, which is about 100 miles (160 km) north-east of Las Vegas, Nevada.[73] Local and state opposition to this plan delayed efforts to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. In March 2010, the Department of Energy withdrew its license application for the Yucca Mountain repository "with prejudice" and eliminated funding for the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, which had managed the Yucca Mountain site for 25 years, canceling the program.[74]
Medical experimentation
During and after the end of World War II, scientists working on the Manhattan Project and other nuclear weapons research projects conducted studies of the effects of plutonium on laboratory animals and human subjects.[75] Animal studies found that a few milligrams of plutonium per kilogram of tissue is a lethal dose.[76]
In the case of human subjects, this involved injecting solutions containing (typically) five micrograms of plutonium into hospital patients thought to be either terminally ill, or to have a life expectancy of less than ten years either due to age or chronic disease condition.[75] This was reduced to one microgram in July 1945 after animal studies found that the way plutonium distributed itself in bones was more dangerous than radium.[76] Most of the subjects, Eileen Welsome says, were poor, powerless, and sick.[77]
From 1945 to 1947, eighteen human test subjects were injected with plutonium without informed consent. The tests were used to create diagnostic tools to determine the uptake of plutonium in the body in order to develop safety standards for working with plutonium.[75] Other experiments directed by the United States Atomic Energy Commission and the Manhattan Project continued into the 1970s. The Plutonium Files chronicles the lives of the subjects of the secret program by naming each person involved and discussing the ethical and medical research conducted in secret by the scientists and doctors. The episode is now considered to be a serious breach of medical ethics and of the Hippocratic Oath.[78]
The government covered up most of these radiation mishaps until 1993, when President Bill Clinton ordered a change of policy and federal agencies then made available relevant records. The resulting investigation was undertaken by the president's Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, and it uncovered much of the material about plutonium research on humans. The committee issued a controversial 1995 report which said that "wrongs were committed" but it did not condemn those who perpetrated them.[77]
The isotope plutonium-239 is a key fissile component in nuclear weapons, due to its ease of fission and availability. Encasing the bomb's plutonium pit in a tamper (an optional layer of dense material) decreases the amount of plutonium needed to reach critical mass by reflecting escaping neutrons back into the plutonium core. This reduces the amount of plutonium needed to reach criticality from 16 kg to 10 kg, which is a sphere with a diameter of about 10 centimeters (4 in).[79] This critical mass is about a third of that for uranium-235.[8]
The "Fat Man"–type plutonium bombs produced during the Manhattan Project used explosive compression of plutonium to obtain significantly higher densities than normal, combined with a central neutron source to begin the reaction and increase efficiency. Thus only 6.2 kg of plutonium was needed for an explosive yield equivalent to 20 kilotons of TNT.[67][80] (See also nuclear weapon design.) Hypothetically, as little as 4 kg of plutonium—and maybe even less—could be used to make a single atomic bomb using very sophisticated assembly designs.[80]
Mixed oxide fuel
Spent nuclear fuel from normal light water reactors contains plutonium, but it is a mixture of plutonium-242, 240, 239 and 238. The mixture is not sufficiently enriched for efficient nuclear weapons, but can be used once as MOX fuel. Accidental neutron capture causes the amount of plutonium-242 and 240 to grow each time the plutonium is irradiated in a reactor with low-speed "thermal" neutrons, so that after the second cycle, the plutonium can only be consumed by fast neutron reactors. If fast neutron reactors are not available (the normal case), excess plutonium is usually discarded, and forms the longest-lived component of nuclear waste. The desire to consume this plutonium and other transuranic fuels and reduce the radiotoxicity of the waste is the usual reason nuclear engineers give to make fast neutron reactors.
The most common chemical process, PUREX (Plutonium–URanium EXtraction) reprocesses spent nuclear fuel to extract plutonium and uranium which can be used to form a mixed oxide "MOX fuel" for reuse in nuclear reactors. Weapons grade plutonium can be added to the fuel mix. MOX fuel is used in light water reactors and consists of 60 kg of plutonium per tonne of fuel; after four years, three-quarters of the plutonium is burned (turned into other elements).[32] Breeder reactors are specifically designed to create more fissionable material than they consume.
MOX fuel has been in use since the 1980s and is widely used in Europe.[81] In September 2000, the United States and the Russian Federation signed a Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement by which each agreed to dispose of 34 tonnes of weapon grade plutonium.[82] The U.S. Department of Energy plans to dispose of 34 tonnes of weapon grade plutonium in the United States before the end of 2019 by converting the plutonium to a MOX fuel to be used in commercial nuclear power reactors.[82]
MOX fuel improves total burnup. A fuel rod is reprocessed after three years of use to remove waste products, which by then account for 3% of the total weight of the rods.[32] Any uranium or plutonium isotopes produced during those three years are left and the rod goes back into production.[note 10] The presence of up to 1% gallium per mass in weapon grade plutonium alloy has the potential to interfere with long-term operation of a light water reactor.[83]
Plutonium recovered from spent reactor fuel poses a less significant proliferation hazard, because of excessive contamination with non-fissile plutonium-240 and plutonium-242. Separation of the isotopes is not feasible. A dedicated reactor operating on very low burnup (hence minimal exposure of newly formed Pu-239 to additional neutrons which causes it to be transformed to heavier isotopes of plutonium) is generally required to produce material suitable for use in efficient nuclear weapons. While 'weapons-grade' plutonium is defined to contain at least 92% plutonium-239 (of the total plutonium), the United States have managed to detonate an under-20Kt device using plutonium believed to contain only about 85% plutonium-239, so called 'fuel-grade' plutonium.[84] The 'reactor grade' plutonium produced by a regular LWR burnup cycle typically contains less than 60% Pu-239, with up to 30% parasitic Pu-240/Pu-242, and 10–15% fissile Pu-241.[84] It's unknown if a device using plutonium obtained from reprocessed civil nuclear waste can be detonated, however such a device could hypothetically fizzle and spread radioactive materials over a large urban area. The IAEA conservatively classifies plutonium of all isotopic vectors as "direct-use" material, that is, "nuclear material that can be used for the manufacture of nuclear explosives components without transmutation or further enrichment".[84]
241Am has recently been suggested for use as a denaturing agent in plutonium reactor fuel rods to further limit its proliferation potential.[85]
Power and heat source
The isotope plutonium-238 has a half-life of 87.74 years.[86] It emits a large amount of thermal energy with low levels of both gamma rays/particles and spontaneous neutron rays/particles.[87] Being an alpha emitter, it combines high energy radiation with low penetration and thereby requires minimal shielding. A sheet of paper can be used to shield against the alpha particles emitted by plutonium-238. One kilogram of the isotope can generate about 570 watts of heat.[8][87]
These characteristics make it well-suited for electrical power generation for devices which must function without direct maintenance for timescales approximating a human lifetime. It is therefore used in radioisotope thermoelectric generators and radioisotope heater units such as those in the Cassini, Voyager, and New Horizons space probes.
The twin Voyager spacecraft were launched in 1977, each containing a 500 watt plutonium power source. Over 30 years later, each source is still producing about 300 watts which allows limited operation of each spacecraft.[88] An earlier version of the same technology powered five Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Packages, starting with Apollo 12 in 1969.[32]
Plutonium-238 has also been used successfully to power artificial heart pacemakers, to reduce the risk of repeated surgery.[89][90] It has been largely replaced by lithium-based primary cells, but as of 2003[update] there were somewhere between 50 and 100 plutonium-powered pacemakers still implanted and functioning in living patients.[91] Plutonium-238 was studied as a way to provide supplemental heat to scuba diving.[92] Plutonium-238 mixed with beryllium is used to generate neutrons for research purposes.[32]
There are two aspects to the harmful effects of plutonium: the radioactivity and the heavy metal poison effects.
Isotopes and compounds of plutonium are radioactive and accumulate in bone marrow. Contamination by plutonium oxide has resulted from nuclear disasters and radioactive incidents, including military nuclear accidents where nuclear weapons have burned.[93] Studies of the effects of these smaller releases, as well as of the widespread radiation poisoning sickness and death following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, have provided considerable information regarding the dangers, symptoms and prognosis of radiation poisoning, which in the case of the Japanese Hibakusha/survivors was largely unrelated to direct plutonium exposure.[94]
During the decay of plutonium, three types of radiation are released—alpha, beta, and gamma. Alpha radiation can travel only a short distance and cannot travel through the outer, dead layer of human skin. Beta radiation can penetrate human skin, but cannot go all the way through the body. Gamma radiation can go all the way through the body.[95] Alpha, beta, and gamma radiation are all forms of ionizing radiation. Either acute or longer-term exposure carries a danger of serious health outcomes including radiation sickness, genetic damage, cancer, and death. The danger increases with the amount of exposure.
Even though alpha radiation cannot penetrate the skin, ingested or inhaled plutonium does irradiate internal organs.[32] The skeleton, where plutonium accumulates, and the liver, where it collects and becomes concentrated, are at risk.[31] Plutonium is not absorbed into the body efficiently when ingested; only 0.04% of plutonium oxide is absorbed after ingestion.[32] Plutonium absorbed by the body is excreted very slowly, with a biological half-life of 200 years.[96] Plutonium passes only slowly through cell membranes and intestinal boundaries, so absorption by ingestion and incorporation into bone structure proceeds very slowly.[97][98]
Plutonium is more dangerous when inhaled than when ingested. The risk of lung cancer increases once the total radiation dose equivalent of inhaled plutonium exceeds 400 mSv.[99] The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that the lifetime cancer risk from inhaling 5,000 plutonium particles, each about 3 µm wide, to be 1% over the background U.S. average.[100] Ingestion or inhalation of large amounts may cause acute radiation poisoning and death; no human is known to have died because of inhaling or ingesting plutonium, and many people have measurable amounts of plutonium in their bodies.[84]
The "hot particle" theory in which a particle of plutonium dust radiates a localized spot of lung tissue is not supported by mainstream research—such particles are more mobile than originally thought and toxicity is not measurably increased due to particulate form.[97]
When inhaled, plutonium can pass into the bloodstream. Once in the bloodstream, plutonium moves throughout the body and into the bones, liver, or other body organs. Plutonium that reaches body organs generally stays in the body for decades and continues to expose the surrounding tissue to radiation and thus may cause cancer.[101]
A commonly cited quote by Ralph Nader[102] states that a pound of plutonium dust spread into the atmosphere would be enough to kill 8 billion people. However, calculations show that one pound of plutonium could kill no more than 2 million people by inhalation. This makes the toxicity of plutonium roughly equivalent with that of nerve gas.[103] Nader's views were challenged in 1976 by Bernard Cohen, as described in the book Nuclear Power, Both Sides: The Best Arguments for and Against the Most Controversial Technology. Cohen's own estimate is that a dose of 200 micrograms would likely be necessary to cause cancer.[104]
Several populations of people who have been exposed to plutonium dust (e.g. people living down-wind of Nevada test sites, Nagasaki survivors, nuclear facility workers, and "terminally ill" patients injected with Pu in 1945–46 to study Pu metabolism) have been carefully followed and analyzed. These studies generally do not show especially high plutonium toxicity or plutonium-induced cancer results, such as Albert Stevens who survived into old age after being injected with plutonium.[97] "There were about 25 workers from Los Alamos National Laboratory who inhaled a considerable amount of plutonium dust during 1940s; according to the hot-particle theory, each of them has a 99.5% chance of being dead from lung cancer by now, but there has not been a single lung cancer among them."[103][105]
Plutonium has a metallic taste.[106]
Criticality potential
Toxicity issues aside, care must be taken to avoid the accumulation of amounts of plutonium which approach critical mass, particularly because plutonium's critical mass is only a third of that of uranium-235.[8] A critical mass of plutonium emits lethal amounts of neutrons and gamma rays.[107] Plutonium in solution is more likely to form a critical mass than the solid form due to moderation by the hydrogen in water.[14]
Criticality accidents have occurred in the past, some of them with lethal consequences. Careless handling of tungsten carbide bricks around a 6.2 kg plutonium sphere resulted in a fatal dose of radiation at Los Alamos on August 21, 1945, when scientist Harry K. Daghlian, Jr. received a dose estimated to be 5.1 sievert (510 rems) and died 25 days later.[108][109] Nine months later, another Los Alamos scientist, Louis Slotin, died from a similar accident involving a beryllium reflector and the same plutonium core (the so-called "demon core") that had previously claimed the life of Daghlian.[110] These incidents were fictionalized in the 1989 film Fat Man and Little Boy.
In December 1958, during a process of purifying plutonium at Los Alamos, a critical mass was formed in a mixing vessel, which resulted in the death of a chemical operator named Cecil Kelley.[111] Other nuclear accidents have occurred in the Soviet Union, Japan, the United States, and many other countries.[111]
Metallic plutonium is a fire hazard, especially if the material is finely divided. In a moist environment, plutonium forms hydrides on its surface, which are pyrophoric and may ignite in air at room temperature. Plutonium expands up to 70% in volume as it oxidizes and thus may break its container.[34] The radioactivity of the burning material is an additional hazard. Magnesium oxide sand is probably the most effective material for extinguishing a plutonium fire. It cools the burning material, acting as a heat sink, and also blocks off oxygen. Special precautions are necessary to store or handle plutonium in any form; generally a dry inert gas atmosphere is required.[34][note 11]
Land and sea
The usual transportation of plutonium is through the more stable plutonium oxide in a sealed package. A typical transport consists of one truck carrying one protected shipping container, holding a number of packages with a total weight varying from 80 to 200 kg of plutonium oxide. A sea shipment may consist of several containers, each of them holding a sealed packages.[112] The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission dictates that it must be solid instead of powder in case the contents surpass 0.74 TBq (20 Curie) of radioactive decay.[113]
|The examples and perspective in this Section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. (August 2012)
The U.S. Government air transport regulations permit the transport of plutonium by air, subject to restrictions on other dangerous materials carried on the same flight, packaging requirements, and stowage in the rearmost part of the aircraft.[114]
In 2012 media revealed that plutonium has been flown out of Norway on commercial passenger airlines—around every other year—including one time in 2011.[115] Regulations permit an airplane to transport 15 grams of fissionable material.[115] Such plutonium transportation is without problems, according to a Senior Advisor (seniorrådgiver) at Statens strålevern.[115]
See also
- ^ The PuO+
2 ion is unstable in solution and will disproportionate into Pu4+ and PuO2+
2; the Pu4+ will then oxidize the remaining PuO+
2 to PuO2+
2, being reduced in turn to Pu3+. Thus, aqueous solutions of PuO+
2 tend over time towards a mixture of Pu3+ and PuO2+
2 is unstable for the same reason.
- Crooks, William J. (2002). "Nuclear Criticality Safety Engineering Training Module 10 – Criticality Safety in Material Processing Operations, Part 1" (PDF). Retrieved February 15, 2006.
- ^ This was not the first time somebody suggested that an element be named "plutonium." A decade after barium was discovered, a Cambridge University professor suggested it be renamed to "plutonium" because the element was not (as suggested by the Greek root, barys, it was named for) heavy. He reasoned that, since it was produced by the relatively new technique of electrolysis, its name should refer to fire. Thus he suggested it be named for the Roman god of the underworld, Pluto. (Heiserman 1992)
- ^ As one article puts it, referring to information Seaborg gave in a talk: "The obvious choice for the symbol would have been Pl, but facetiously, Seaborg suggested Pu, like the words a child would exclaim, 'Pee-yoo!' when smelling something bad. Seaborg thought that he would receive a great deal of flak over that suggestion, but the naming committee accepted the symbol without a word."
- Clark, David L.; Hobart, David E. (2000). "Reflections on the Legacy of a Legend: Glenn T. Seaborg, 1912–1999" (PDF). Los Alamos Science 26: 56–61, on 57. Retrieved February 15, 2009.
- ^ Room 405 of the George Herbert Jones Laboratory, where the first isolation of plutonium took place, was named a National Historic Landmark in May 1967.
- ^ During the Manhattan Project, plutonium was also often referred to as simply "49": the number 4 was for the last digit in 94 (atomic number of plutonium), and 9 was for the last digit in plutonium-239, the weapon-grade fissile isotope used in nuclear bombs.
- Hammel, E.F. (2000). "The taming of "49" – Big Science in little time. Recollections of Edward F. Hammel, pp. 2–9. In: Cooper N.G. Ed. (2000). Challenges in Plutonium Science". Los Alamos Science 26 (1): 2–9. Retrieved February 15, 2009.
- Hecker, S.S. (2000). "Plutonium: an historical overview. In: Challenges in Plutonium Science". Los Alamos Science 26 (1): 1–2. Retrieved February 15, 2009.
- ^ The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) established B Reactor as a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark in September 1976.
- Wahlen, R.K. (1989). History of 100-B Area (PDF). Richland, Washington: Westinghouse Hanford Company. p. 1. WHC-EP-0273. Retrieved February 15, 2009.
- "Weekly List Actions". National Park Service. August 29, 2008. Retrieved August 30, 2008.
- ^ The efficiency calculation is based on the fact that 1 kg of plutonium-239 (or uranium-235) fissioning results in an energy release of approximately 17 kt, leading to a rounded estimate of 1.2 kg plutonium actually fissioned to produce the 20 kt yield. On the figure of 1 kg = 17 kt,
- Garwin, Richard (October 4, 2002). "Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and Materials to State and Non-State Actors: What It Means for the Future of Nuclear Power". University of Michigan Symposium. Federation of American Scientists. Retrieved January 4, 2009.
- ^ Much of this plutonium was used to make the fissionable cores of a type of thermonuclear weapon employing the Teller–Ulam design. These so-called 'hydrogen bombs' are a variety of nuclear weapon that use a fission bomb to trigger the nuclear fusion of heavy hydrogen isotopes. Their destructive yield is commonly in the millions of tons of TNT equivalent compared with the thousands of tons of TNT equivalent of fission-only devices.(Emsley 2001)
- ^ Gadolinium zirconium oxide (Gd
7) has been studied because it could hold plutonium for up to 30 million years.(Emsley 2001)
- ^ Breakdown of plutonium in a spent nuclear fuel rod: plutonium-239 (~58%), 240 (24%), 241 (11%), 242 (5%), and 238 (2%). (Emsley 2001)
- ^ There was a major plutonium-initiated fire at the Rocky Flats Plant near Boulder, Colorado in 1969.
- Albright, David; O'Neill, Kevin (1999). "The Lessons of Nuclear Secrecy at Rocky Flats". ISIS Issue Brief. Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS). Archived from the original on July 8, 2008. Retrieved December 7, 2008.
- ^ Magnetic susceptibility of the elements and inorganic compounds, in Lide, D. R., ed. (2005). CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics (86th ed.). Boca Raton (FL): CRC Press. ISBN 0-8493-0486-5.
- ^ Magurno, B.A.; Pearlstein, S, eds. (1981). Proceedings of the conference on nuclear data evaluation methods and procedures. BNL-NCS 51363, vol. II. Upton, NY (USA): Brookhaven National Lab. pp. 835 ff. Retrieved 2014-08-06.
- ^ Hoffman, D. C.; Lawrence, F. O.; Mewherter, J. L.; Rourke, F. M. (1971). "Detection of Plutonium-244 in Nature". Nature 234 (5325): 132–134. Bibcode:1971Natur.234..132H. doi:10.1038/234132a0.
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- ^ ARQ staff (2008). "Nitric acid processing". Actinide Research Quarterly (Los Alamos (NM): Los Alamos National Laboratory) (3rd quarter). Retrieved February 9, 2010.
While plutonium dioxide is normally olive green, samples can be various colors. It is generally believed that the color is a function of chemical purity, stoichiometry, particle size, and method of preparation, although the color resulting from a given preparation method is not always reproducible.
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- ^ Rhodes, Richard (1986). The Making of the Atomic Bomb. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 659–660. ISBN 0-671-65719-4. Leona Marshall: "When you hold a lump of it in your hand, it feels warm, like a live rabbit"
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|chapter=ignored (help)
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- ^ Press Secretary (July 23, 2002). "President Signs Yucca Mountain Bill". Washington (DC): Office of the Press Secretary, White House. Archived from the original on March 6, 2008. Retrieved January 4, 2009.
- ^ "Department of Energy Files Motion to Withdraw Yucca Mountain License Application". Department of Energy. March 3, 2010.
- ^ a b c Moss, William; Eckhardt, Roger (1995). "The Human Plutonium Injection Experiments" (PDF). Los Alamos Science (Los Alamos National Laboratory) 23: 188, 205, 208, 214. Retrieved June 6, 2006.
- ^ a b Voelz, George L. (2000). "Plutonium and Health: How great is the risk?". Los Alamos Science (Los Alamos (NM): Los Alamos National Laboratory) (26): 78–79.
- ^ a b R.C. Longworth. Injected! Book review:The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Nov/Dec 1999, 55(6): 58-61.
- ^ Yesley, Michael S. (1995). "'Ethical Harm' and the Plutonium Injection Experiments" (PDF). Los Alamos Science 23: 280–283. Retrieved February 15, 2009.
- ^ Martin, James E. (2000). Physics for Radiation Protection (1st ed.). Wiley-Interscience. p. 532. ISBN 0-471-35373-6.
- ^ a b FAS contributors (1998). "Nuclear Weapon Design". Federation of American Scientists. Retrieved December 7, 2008.
- ^ WNA contributors (2006). "Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel". London (UK): World Nuclear Association. Retrieved December 14, 2008.
- ^ a b DNFSB staff (2004). "Public Law 107-314, Subtitle E". Plutonium Storage at the Department of Energy's Savannah River Site: First Annual Report to Congress (PDF). Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. pp. A–1. Retrieved February 15, 2009. (public domain text)
- ^ Besmann, Theodore M. (2005). "Thermochemical Behavior of Gallium in Weapons-Material-Derived Mixed-Oxide Light Water Reactor (LWR) Fuel". Journal of the American Ceramic Society 81 (12): 3071–3076. doi:10.1111/j.1151-2916.1998.tb02740.x.
- ^ a b c d WNA contributors (March 2009). "Plutonium". World Nuclear Association. Retrieved February 28, 2010.
- ^ "BGU combats nuclear proliferation". March 1, 2010. Retrieved March 5, 2009.
- ^ "Science for the Critical Masses: How Plutonium Changes with Time". Institute for Energy and Environmental Research.
- ^ a b ARQ contributors (2005). "From heat sources to heart sources: Los Alamos made material for plutonium-powered pumper". Actinide Research Quarterly (Los Alamos (NM): Los Alamos National Laboratory) (1). Retrieved February 15, 2009.
- ^ Voyager-Spacecraft Lifetime
- ^ Venkateswara Sarma Mallela; V. Ilankumaran; and N.Srinivasa Rao (2004). "Trends in Cardiac Pacemaker Batteries". Indian Pacing Electrophysiol 4 (4): 201–212. PMC 1502062. PMID 16943934.
- ^ Defunct pacemakers with Pu power source
- ^ ORAU contributors (1974). "Plutonium Powered Pacemaker". Oak Ridge (TN): Orau.org. Retrieved September 12, 2008.
- ^ Bayles, John J.; Taylor, Douglas (1970). "SEALAB III – Diver's Isotopic Swimsuit-Heater System". Port Hueneme (CA): Naval Civil Engineering Lab. AD0708680.
- ^ ATSDR contributors (2007). "Toxicological Profile for Plutonium, Draft for Public Comment". U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). Retrieved May 22, 2008.
- ^ Little, M P (June 2009). "Cancer and non-cancer effects in Japanese atomic bomb survivors". J Radiol Prot 29 (2A): A43–59. Bibcode:2009JRP....29...43L. doi:10.1088/0952-4746/29/2A/S04. PMID 19454804.
- ^ Plutonium, CAS ID #: 7440-07-5, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
- ^ DOE staff. "Radiological control technical training". U.S. Department of Energy. Archived from the original on June 30, 2007. Retrieved December 14, 2008.
- ^ a b c Cohen, Bernard L.. "The Myth of Plutonium Toxicity".
- ^ Cohen, Bernard L. (May 1977). "Hazards from Plutonium Toxicity". The Radiation Safety Journal: Health Physics 32 (5): 359–379. doi:10.1097/00004032-197705000-00003.
- ^ Brown, Shannon C.; Margaret F. Schonbeck; David McClure; et al. (July 2004). "Lung cancer and internal lung doses among plutonium workers at the Rocky Flats Plant: a case-control study". American Journal of Epidemiology (Oxford Journals) 160 (2): 163–172. doi:10.1093/aje/kwh192. PMID 15234938. Retrieved February 15, 2009.
- ^ ANL staff (2001). "ANL human health fact sheet—plutonium". Argonne National Laboratory. Retrieved June 16, 2007.
- ^ "Radiation Protection, Plutonium: What does plutonium do once it gets into the body?". U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Retrieved March 15, 2011.
- ^ "Did Ralph Nader say that a pound of plutonium could cause 8 billion cancers?". Retrieved 3 January 2013.
- ^ a b Bernard L. Cohen. "The Nuclear Energy Option, Chapter 13, Plutonium and Bombs". Retrieved 28 March 2011. (Online version of Cohen's book The Nuclear Energy Option (Plenum Press, 1990) ISBN 0-306-43567-5).
- ^ Kaku, Michio; Trainer, Jennifer (1983). Nuclear Power, Both Sides: The Best Arguments for and Against the Most Controversial Technology. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 77. Retrieved 8 December 2013.
- ^ Voelz, G. L. (1975). "What We Have Learned About Plutonium from Human Data". The Radiation Safety Journal Health Physics: 29.
- ^ Welsome, Eileen (2000). The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War. New York: Random House. p. 17. ISBN 0-385-31954-1.
- ^ Miner 1968, p. 546
- ^ Roark, Kevin N. (2000). Criticality accidents report issued. Los Alamos (NM): Los Alamos National Laboratory. Archived from the original on October 8, 2008. Retrieved November 16, 2008.
- ^ Hunner, Jon (2004). Inventing Los Alamos. p. 85. ISBN 978-0-8061-3891-6.
- ^ LANL contributors. "Raemer Schreiber". Staff Biographies. Los Alamos (NM): Los Alamos National Laboratory. Archived from the original on January 3, 2013. Retrieved November 16, 2008.
- ^ a b McLaughlin, Thomas P.; Monahan, Shean P.; Pruvost, Norman L. (2000). "A Review of Criticality Accidents". Los Alamos (NM): Los Alamos National Laboratory. p. 17. LA-13638.
- ^ Transport of Radioactive Materials
- ^ § 71.63 Special requirement for plutonium shipments.
- ^ "Part 175.704 Plutonium shipments". Code of Federal Regulations 49 — Transportation. Retrieved 1 August 2012.
- ^ a b c Av Ida Søraunet Wangberg og Anne Kari Hinna. "Klassekampen : Flyr plutonium med rutefly". Klassekampen.no. Retrieved 2012-08-13.
- CRC contributors (2006). David R. Lide, ed. Handbook of Chemistry and Physics (87th ed.). Boca Raton (FL): CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group. ISBN 0-8493-0487-3.
- Emsley, John (2001). "Plutonium". Nature's Building Blocks: An A–Z Guide to the Elements. Oxford (UK): Oxford University Press. pp. 324–329. ISBN 0-19-850340-7.
- Greenwood, N. N.; Earnshaw, A. (1997). Chemistry of the Elements (2nd ed.). Oxford (UK): Butterworth-Heinemann. ISBN 0-7506-3365-4.
- Heiserman, David L. (1992). "Element 94: Plutonium". Exploring Chemical Elements and their Compounds. New York (NY): TAB Books. pp. 337–340. ISBN 0-8306-3018-X.
- Miner, William N.; Schonfeld, Fred W. (1968). "Plutonium". In Clifford A. Hampel (editor). The Encyclopedia of the Chemical Elements. New York (NY): Reinhold Book Corporation. pp. 540–546. LCCN 68029938.
- Stwertka, Albert (1998). "Plutonium". Guide to the Elements (Revised ed.). Oxford (UK): Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-508083-1.
External links
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to Plutonium.
|Look up plutonium in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
- Sutcliffe, W.G.; et al. (1995). "A Perspective on the Dangers of Plutonium". Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Archived from the original on September 29, 2006.
- Johnson, C.M.; Davis, Z.S. (1997). "Nuclear Weapons: Disposal Options for Surplus Weapons-Usable Plutonium". CRS Report for Congress # 97-564 ENR. Retrieved February 15, 2009.
- IEER contributors (2005). "Physical, Nuclear, and Chemical, Properties of Plutonium". IEER. Retrieved February 15, 2009.
- Bhadeshia, H. "Plutonium crystallography".
- Samuels, D. (2005). "End of the Plutonium Age". Discover Magazine 26 (11).
- Pike, J.; Sherman, R. (2000). "Plutonium production". Federation of American Scientists. Retrieved February 15, 2009.
- Nuclear Weapon Archive contributors. "Plutonium Manufacture and Fabrication". Nuclearweaponarchive.org.
- Ong, C. (1999). "World Plutonium Inventories". Nuclear Files.org. Retrieved February 15, 2009.
- LANL contributors (2000). "Challenges in Plutonium Science". Los Alamos Science. I & II (26). Retrieved February 15, 2009.
- NLM contributors. "Plutonium, Radioactive". NLM Hazardous Substances Databank. Retrieved February 15, 2009.
- Alsos contributors. "Annotated Bibliography on plutonium". Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues. Retrieved February 15, 2009.
- Chemistry in its element podcast (MP3) from the Royal Society of Chemistry's Chemistry World: Plutonium
- Plutonium at The Periodic Table of Videos (University of Nottingham)
|Periodic table (Large cells)


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3 new members added to Baseball Hall of Fame
Maddux, Glavine, Thomas join elites
|FILE - From left are Tom Glavine in 2008, Greg Maddux in 2008, and Frank Thomas in 1994 file photos. Glavine, Maddux and Thomas were selected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2014. (AP Photo/File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and Frank Thomas were elected to baseball's Hall of Fame on Wednesday, while Craig Biggio fell two votes short.
Maddux was picked on 555 of 571 ballots by members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America. His 97.2 percentage was the eighth-highest in the history of voting.
Glavine, Maddux's longtime teammate in the Atlanta rotation, appeared on 525 ballots and received 91.9 percent. Thomas, the Hall of Famer who spent the majority of his career was a designated hitter, was at 483.
Biggio, in his second appearance, was at 427 votes and 74.8 percent, matching Nellie Fox in 1985 and Pie Traynor in 1947 for the smallest margin to just miss.
Jack Morris, in his 15th and final appearance, fell 78 votes short at 61.5 percent on a crowded ballot.
Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro, who all compiled big numbers but were tainted by the Steroids Era, each saw their vote percentages drop. Clemens drew the most votes among the group at 35.4 percent.
Maddux, Glavine and Thomas will be inducted in Cooperstown on July 27 along with managers Bobby Cox, Joe Torre and Tony La Russa, elected last month by the expansion-era committee.
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subset: commoncrawl


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Treat Your OrganizationŌĆÖs Most Valuable Resource with Care, Says Former Businessman of the Year
ŌĆ£Many think that professional well-being drives personal well-being, but itŌĆÖs the exact opposite,ŌĆØ says Kunath, a speaker at top business schools and businesses including Lockheed and Marriott, and author of ŌĆ£Life...Don't Miss It. I Almost Did: How I Learned To Live Life to Its Fullest,ŌĆØ (www.lifedontmissitbook.com). ŌĆ£The top companies know focusing on employee well-being is critical and serves as the conduit to increasing innovation, emotional loyalty, natural productivity and overall profitability, but they have exhausted the traditional vehicles inside their companies to do this, so they are focusing on impacting their employees lives ŌĆśoutsideŌĆÖ of the company.ŌĆØ
Employee well-being is very smart business and everyone wins, he says; itŌĆÖs the key to elevating associate engagement. According to the Aspen Institute, more than 70 percent of employees today would sacrifice promotions and pay increases for family well-being. Yet only 40 percent of employees feel their employers demonstrate that they care about them, says the American Psychology Association.
Several major corporations have approached Kunath and asked him to build a program that shows their people how to master life balance and maximize the joy and contentment in their lives, he says.
ŌĆ£The results have been tremendous,ŌĆØ he says. ŌĆ£People love that they are cared for just as much when leaving the building as they are when arriving.ŌĆØ KunathŌĆÖs newest three hour seminar for businesses centers on employee life balance and well-being; here he offers five things business owners and employees should consider in achieving life balance:
ŌĆó Bring humanity back to the workplace: There are simple truths about what motivates employees today and what they want and need from their employers. Employee well-being drives profits and is good for business, he points out. Employers need to allow employees to completely disconnect from work in their off hours ŌĆō for instance, not expecting them to respond to emails or conference calls after hours. He also points out the ŌĆ£Life Balance DilemmasŌĆØ people face, including his own; a former workaholic lifestyle nearly ruined his family relationships before he learned how to develop balance.
ŌĆó The ŌĆ£Life ŌĆ" DonŌĆÖt Miss ItŌĆØ approach: According to a Harvard study, we all have the capability to maximize our happiness regardless of the situation we find ourselves in. A large part of how happy you are is determined through intentional activity. There are things you can do to maximize happiness in your life even in the worst of adversities. Giving people a way to elevate their family well-being is critical to top performance on the job.
ŌĆó Applying Life-Balance secrets: Kunath targets 10 points for Mastering Life Balance. Some of those points are: Money doesnŌĆÖt make you rich; Express gratitude to others; the power of perspective; relationship refinement (thinning the herd); and Good goes around. ŌĆ£All of these points go to the overall perspective of total life balance and focusing on the areas, and the people, that really matter,ŌĆØ he says.
ŌĆó Power of Perspective: Why is it that people who have faced death often live the most? Why must we wait for adversity to teach us to get the most out of life? The answer is that you donŌĆÖt. Kunath emphasizes various perspectives on how you can live life to the fullest every day and what the keys are to maximizing employee and family well-being.
ŌĆó The three greatest gifts you can give your family: For all the importance and effort involved in mastering a worklife to fund a familyŌĆÖs well-being, the three greatest gifts you have to offer are actually free! They are time, memories and traditions. Time is our greatest resource, and itŌĆÖs also our most scarce, which makes memories all the more important. They give you a place to go for all of your life. Traditions live on after youŌĆÖre gone; theyŌĆÖre a legacy you leave for your loved ones.
About Gary KunathGary Kunath is the founder of The Summit Group, whichis ranked among the top sales-training companies in the world by Selling Power magazine. His value-creation approach received the ŌĆ£Innovative Practice of the Year AwardŌĆØ by 3M worldwide. He was named Businessman of the Year and was recognized at a dinner hosted by the president of the United States. He has lectured extensively at prominent business schools, and is currently an adjunct professor at The CitadelŌĆÖs Sports Marketing graduate program. Kunath is an owner of several professional minor league baseball teams along with his partners, Bill Murray, Jimmy Buffet and Mike Veeck. The group is famous for managing its teams around the ŌĆ£Fun is GoodŌĆØ approach. ŌĆó


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Videos & Screenshots
Game Details
Game Description
This stunning sequel to the one of the most popular first-person shooters ever comes exclusively to the Xbox. Once again, you're research scientist Gordon Freeman. Your task: save what's left of the dwindling human population and rescue our alien-ravaged planet. Half-Life 2 unfolds with cinema-quality graphics in a world developed with never-before-seen levels of sophistication. Characters react with lifelike fluidity and a remarkable range of emotion thanks to 40 distinct facial muscles. Friends and foes respond to your presence. They'll use advanced AI to navigate terrain, fashion weapons, and assess threats before acting. Objects react according to real laws of physics. First-person shooting goes further than ever in this startling display of realism and responsiveness.
User Reviews
Average Member Rating: 8.2 out of 10
Half Life 2. (10 out of 10)
posted by dylan22 (RANDLEMAN, NC) on Mar 3, 2007
Member since Dec 2004
6 out of 6 gamers (100%) found this review helpful
Member since Dec 2004
6 out of 6 gamers (100%) found this review helpful
To start with, this is a most excellent game. I was completely blown away by it and it still blows me away. Very immersive and interactive game play makes it perhaps the best game I've ever played. It is definetly the best First-person shooter that I've played. Advanced AI makes it a difficult and c...more
Specs & Requirements
Xbox 360 Compatible Yes
Audio/Video In-Game Dolby Digital, HDTV 480p
Modes Story, Campaign, Full Mission Single-Player
Similar Games
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By Shawn Craddick
Every now and then you can find a Jewel in the bush. I ran across this on Devon Alexander's Social Media Page and I find it very interesting. Devon only has two losses and those 2 were by the hands of Timothy Bradly and most recently Shawn Porter. Devon didn't really give us much feedback at the post fight presser, but now he is giving us details as to why he loss those two fights.
Devon stated, "My only losses is to myself it wasn't nothing that the opponent did I took them lightly because I know I was so much bskilled then them."
Well hopefully he will take all opponents seriously and get back to the hard work and dedication that got them to the top. Currently Devon is looking for another opponents. Right now we are hearing that Shawn Porter will be facing another opponent. If that is true, then Devon will have to wait his turn.
Views: 59


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FireAMP Analyzes And Blocks Advanced Malware Utilizing Big Data Analytics. Watch This Short Video To See How FireAMP Delivers The Visibility And Control Needed To Block Threats Missed By Other Security Layers.
Sourcefire, Inc. (Nasdaq: FIRE), a leader in intelligent cybersecurity solutions, today introduced FireAMP™ advanced malware protection, a malware discovery and analysis solution that analyzes and blocks malware by utilizing big data analytics. Designed for large enterprises, FireAMP delivers unprecedented visibility and the control needed to block threats missed by other security layers. FireAMP is the latest fulfillment of Sourcefire's Agile Security™ vision for context-aware, adaptive and automated security solutions.
"Test results consistently show that the endpoint protection platforms (EPPs) currently available still do not protect endpoints against mass-propagated consumer threats — and their performance is even more dismal when faced with handcrafted targeted attacks," said Neil MacDonald, vice president and fellow, and Peter Firstbrook, research director, at Gartner. 1 "Moreover, the dwell time of targeted threats can be measured in months or even years, in some instances. Gartner currently estimates that 4% to 7% of enterprise endpoints are infected at any given time, and that the next scheduled scan will catch only 1% of threats."
With the launch of FireAMP, Sourcefire ® is first to market with five new capabilities that amplify an organization's defenses against advanced malware:
- FireCLOUD™ – Cloud-based infrastructure encompassing a number of advanced detection capabilities that leverage big data analytics to identify and score threats missed by other security layers
- File Trajectory – Tracks file movement within the enterprise, allowing organizations to identify the entry point and propagation path of malware
- File Analysis - Provides detailed information on malware behavior backed by the elite Sourcefire Vulnerability Research Team (VRT™) and the company's collective security intelligence
- Outbreak Control – Customer-defined detections that immediately block malware without requiring an update from your security vendor
- Cloud Recall™ – Continuous in-the-cloud analysis of historical file activity to discover and remediate threats that were previously missed
FireAMP uses a lightweight agent to communicate with a cloud-based analysis engine and only leverages metadata for evaluation, requiring less storage, computation and memory than other security products. This minimizes system impact and allows it to coexist with and supplement existing security layers without sacrificing performance or manageability.
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I'm a twenty year old male, my life seems to have been in limbo for the past 6 months. I'm from a big city in texas and I am currently in a rush to relocate. New York City is my target. Unfortunately I don't know anyone there. I'm not attending school. I don't have alot of money or anyone that will help me out. (family is out of the country). I can cover the plane ticket to la guardia but that's about all I know about new york. I'm a musician/painter with a good head on my shoulders, but I seem to be stuck in a rut. My lease is up in a week and I don't have anywhere to go or anyone to go to. I've heard brooklyn is where I need to be. Any tips on finding a place that is affordable for 1 or how to go about finding a roomate and a place? PLEASE HELP!!!!
luckiswhathappens's Life List
1. live in New York for one year
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47 people
2. Get out of my rut.
30 people


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So very, very sorry, but we won't be able to release Hannah Fettig's Mabel's Closet on Monday. Darn!
As you've heard on this blog (over and over), we're assembling a dye house in nearby Biddeford. And it's slow going. One step forward, a half-step back, etc. We ARE getting there, but you can't believe the number of minor and time-eating glitches that pop up when you're running pipes, mounting a chimney, tuning motors, checking hoists, examining tanks for leaks, putting up walls, mudding sheet rock, painting, sanding floors, running wiring, hanging lights, etc. This is so not knitting.
That said, we had hoped to dye our first skein this week. Just imagine the joyous cries you would have heard had we succeeded!
But no. Not quite.
Next week? Maybe. But on second thought, no. It's Thanksgiving.
Then week after next. Yes! For sure. We hope.
So, given that we are out of every single yarn used in Mabel's Closet, we're putting off the book's release until Monday Nov. 26. When we might very well have the yarn to go with it.
In the meantime, to ease the pain, we offer the photo above, a mellow corner in Hannah's house, and a lovely reminder that creativity requires a little chaos.
AND we're hosting another giveaway. We'll choose a winner on Monday from this week's comments. (See our previous post.) And starting on Monday, 11/19, we're doing another giveaway or Hannah's book. If you don't win with your comment this week, make another one on Monday, and you might have better luck next time.
Thanks, dear readers, for your patience.


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A finger fracture is a crack or break of a bone in your finger.
A finger fracture usually happens from hitting a hard object with the finger, being hit by a ball, getting a finger slammed in a door, or falling onto your hand.
Symptoms may include:
Your provider will ask about your child's symptoms and how the injury happened. He or she will examine your child. Your child will have X-rays of the finger.
A child's bones are different from an adult's bones in a couple ways. A child's bones are more flexible and may crack rather than break. Or they may just buckle slightly. Also, the bones are still growing from areas near the ends of the bones called growth plates. A fracture in a growth plate may affect the growth of the bone but it may be hard to see with X-rays. Sometimes special tests are needed to diagnose fractures in the growth plate.
The treatment depends on the type of fracture. If the broken bone is crooked, your healthcare provider will straighten it. Your child will be given medicine first so the straightening is not painful. Sometimes surgery is needed to put the bones back into the correct position.
Your healthcare provider may put the finger in a splint. Depending on the type of fracture the splint may be on the bottom of the finger or the top. Your provider will decide if the finger should be kept straight or slightly bent. Your child will need to wear the splint for 3 to 6 weeks, depending on the injury.
Some finger fractures don't need to be splinted. They only need to be taped to the finger next to the injured finger (called buddy taping).
Follow the full course of treatment your healthcare provider prescribes. Also:
Depending on the type of injury and how it was treated, your child may need to do special exercises to help the finger get stronger. Most of the time preteen children are so active that they get stronger and more flexible without physical therapy.
Keep all appointments for provider visits or tests. Call your healthcare provider if:
It usually takes 4 to 6 weeks for a broken finger to heal. Sometimes it may take weeks or months for the swelling to go away, and in some cases the finger may stay swollen. Some fingers are crooked after the fracture heals. However, most simple finger fractures heal without any problems. If the fracture goes into a joint your finger may keep feeling stiff and lose some flexibility.
Most finger fractures happen from accidents that are not easy to prevent.


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Dogwood Manor Apartments are the perfect home for persons 55 and older who are looking for a peaceful place to call home. We offer spacious one bedroom apartments complete with a fully equipped kitchen and many other amenities. We are nestled in a quiet country setting with small town charm yet close to major hospitals, shopping and etc.
Dogwood Manor Apartments - Apartment - Havana, FL
All information furnished on this web site is from sources believed by Streamroll LLC to be reliable. However, no representation is made as to the accuracy thereof and Streamroll LLC is not responsible for any errors contained herein or omissions herefrom. The property information presented herein is subject to; change in price, sale or financing, or withdrawal without notice.
In order to provide you with content and other features that may be of interest to you, Streamroll may collect and use relevant information about you when you use the Website. Streamroll and Trippe Realty Management are committed to maintaining high standards of data privacy.
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Online Schools Offering Healthcare Degrees
We feature 124 allied health training programs in many specializations. These degrees are available through 29 colleges. Online student reviewers have given an average recommendation rate of 60 percent to these schools. Career helpfulness ratings for these colleges range from 20 to 78 percent; this is the percentage of students who said their training helped advance their career. Average tuition for allied health colleges is $17,801 a year.
|Annual Tuition
|Certificate $14,904
|Associate $14,615
|Bachelor's $15,043
|Master's $15,527
|Doctorate $13,488
|Annual Earnings (mid-career)
|Bachelor's $55,629
|Master's $68,867
|Doctorate $96,242
Allied health programs are available at every degree level, from the undergraduate diploma to the doctorate. At the associate level, allied health programs usually lead to clinical assisting careers, such as medical assisting, dental assisting, and respiratory therapy. Bachelor's programs can be used to enter more advanced clinical roles, such as radiologic technologist or healthcare administrator. Master's degrees can prepare graduates for licensure as a care provider, such as a nurse practitioner, or for work as a healthcare manager. Doctorate graduates can land research positions in colleges and universities, developing methods for improving healthcare practices or quality.
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This website offers school details to prospective students as an informational resource. The appearance of a school listing on this website should not be interpreted as an endorsement by the school of this site.
This website also offers school data. With the exception of the recommend rate percentage (which is the average based on the student reviews submitted to our site), all of the data was collected in 2011-2013 from the National Center for Education Statistics or from an official representative of the school. Salaries and job growth were collected in 2013-2014 from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, except on our reviews pages, where all data is aggregated from user submissions. NCES and BLS data is updated annually to reflect the most current available data and review information is updated in real time.
Guide To Online Schools takes no position with respect to the information or opinions expressed in the user comments/reviews and is not responsible for their content. For additional information, refer to our School Data Methodology.