What a material:
- only exists in trace amounts in nature,but it can be produced at kilogram scale in breeder reactors
- it is only intentionally produced for one application, and one application only basically: nuclear weapons
Plutonium Metal Preparation by Los Alamos National Laboratory
. Source. Describes conversion from Plutonium nitrate to a plutonium metal slab, which is then sent to final pit.
Plutonium-238-oxide pellet glowing under its own heat
. Source. Unlike for nuclear applications, we don't need the pure metal, so the oxide 238PuO2 is used instead as it is more chemically stable.Plutonium-240 is a contaminant.
This isotope shows up as an inevitable contaminant in Plutonium-239 for nuclear weapons, because it emits neutrons too fast and makes it harder to assemble the critical mass without fizzle.
It is the presence of this contaminant that made implosion-type fission weapon a necessity: Section "Gun-type fission weapons don't work with plutonium".
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Plutonium is a radioactive, silvery-gray metal that is part of the actinide series in the periodic table. It has the chemical symbol 'Pu' and atomic number 94. Discovered in 1940 by a team of American researchers, plutonium is notable for its use in nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons due to its fissile properties, which means it can sustain a nuclear reaction.