Title: Plutonium, Chemical Element - water, uses, elements, metal, number, name, symbol, property
Headings: PLUTONIUM
PLUTONIUM
Overview
SYMBOL
Pu
ATOMIC NUMBER
94
ATOMIC MASS
244.0642
Discovery and naming
Physical properties
Chemical properties
Occurrence in nature
Isotopes
Extraction
Uses
Using fuel to make fuel
Compounds
Health effects
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Content: Plutonium is also used as a fuel in nuclear power plants and in making  nuclear weapons ("atomic bombs"). The isotope used for this  purpose is plutonium-239. It is used because it will undergo nuclear  fission. Very few isotopes will undergo nuclear fission. Two isotopes of  uranium, uranium-233 and uranium-235, are among these. But uranium-233  does not occur at all in nature and uranium-235 occurs in only very small  amounts. Using fuel to make fuel
T he production of plutonium fuel (plutonium-239) is a fascinating story. When nuclear reactors were first built, they all used uranium-235 as a  fuel. Of the three naturally occurring isotopes of uranium, only  uranium-235 will undergo fission. But the uranium used in a nuclear reactor is never pure uranium.