Superheavy

Making and Breaking the Periodic Table

Kit Chapman 2019, Tigard 546.44 CHA

• p35 Gilman Hall Berkeley 1939; Alvarez and Seaborg make element 93, Neptunium, decaying to 94 Plutonium
• p53 Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Clinton Engineering Works), X-10 Graphite Reactor (Clinton Pile)
  • p60 makes Pu-238 (thermal) plutonium for NASA (Voyager, Curiosity)
• p80 Element 112, superheavies 6% off projections, a wasted month of beam time at $50,000 per day
• p96 Eniwetok Ivy Mike bomb test produced Pu-244, half life 80 My
• Many arguments about names
• INR near Dubna, Flerov and Oganessian ... funding problems after USSR demise
• Lawrence Berkeley Lab, Al Ghiorso, Lawrence Livermore
• RIKEN Nishima
• GSI Darmstadt
  • Victor Ninov fraud, element 118 altered data

• The Transuranium People: The Inside Story Hoffmann, Ghiorso, Seaborg (2000)

• Chemistry of the Superheavy ElementsShadel & Shaunessey (eds. 2015)