Title: Plutonium | chemical element | Britannica
Headings: Plutonium
Plutonium
chemical element
Element Properties

Content: Plutonium | chemical element | Britannica
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Plutonium
chemical element
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WRITTEN BY
Lester Morss
Adjunct Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland. See Article History
Alternative Title: Pu
Plutonium (Pu), radioactive chemical element of the actinoid series of the periodic table, atomic number 94. It is the most important transuranium element because of its use as fuel in certain types of nuclear reactors and as an ingredient in nuclear weapons. Plutonium is a silvery metal that takes on a yellow tarnish in air. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Britannica Quiz
118 Names and Symbols of the Periodic Table Quiz
The periodic table is made up of 118 elements. How well do you know their symbols? In this quiz you’ll be shown all 118 chemical symbols, and you’ll need to choose the name of the chemical element that each one represents. The element was first detected (1941) as the isotope plutonium-238 by American chemists Glenn T. Seaborg, Joseph W. Kennedy, and Arthur C. Wahl, who produced it by deuteron bombardment of uranium -238 in the 152-cm (60-inch) cyclotron at Berkeley, California. The element was named after the then planet Pluto.