Uranium
Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. Uranium has the highest atomic weight of the primordially occurring elements. In 2019, 440 nuclear power reactors produced 2586 TWh of CO2 free electricity worldwide.
About Uranium in brief
Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. Uranium has the highest atomic weight of the primordially occurring elements. Its density is about 70% higher than that of lead, and slightly lower than gold or tungsten. It occurs naturally in low concentrations of a few parts per million in soil, rock and water, and is commercially extracted from uranium-bearing minerals such as uraninite. In nature, uranium is found as uranium-238, uranium-235, and a very small amount of uranium-234. Uranium decays slowly by emitting an alpha particle. The half-life of Uranium-238 is about 4. 47 billion years and that of uranium -235 is 704 million years, making them useful in dating the age of the Earth. Many contemporary uses of uranium exploit its unique nuclear properties, including its use as a fuel in the nuclear power industry and in Little Boy, the first nuclear weapon used in war. In 2019, 440 nuclear power reactors produced 2586 TWh of CO2 free electricity worldwide. This is more than the global installations of solar and wind power combined. Since around 2000, plutonium obtained by dismantling cold war era bombs is used as fuel for nuclear reactors. The development and deployment of these nuclear reactors continue on a global base. There is increasing interest in these power plants as they are powerful sources ofCO2 free energy. It has a Mohs hardness of 6, sufficient to scratch glass and approximately equal to that of titanium, rhodium, manganese, niobium, and titanium.
When refined, Uranium is malleable, slightly ductositive and electropositive. It reacts with almost all non-metal elements and compounds, with reactivity increasing with temperature. When coated with a dark layer of uranium metal, it can react with cold water; in air, uranium becomes coated with cold air. When extracted and converted into ores, uranium oxide is converted into other chemical compounds. It can also be used in kinetic energy penetrators and armor plating. It was also used for tinting and shading in early photography. When finely divided it can be divided into very finely divided uranium ores and uranium oxide. It’s used as a colorant in uranium glass, producing lemon yellow to green colors. The element can attack very slowly, but very quickly attack the very very rarer uranium oxide in very concentrated amounts. It also has a very high density of 1.gcm3, but slightly less dense than tungststen and gold. It’s a poor electrical conductor, strongly a poor conductor of electropropium, strongly electropose and paramium, but it is a good conductor of nickel, cobalt, nickel, palladium and other rarer elements. The only naturally occurring fissile isotope, uranium-233, can be produced from natural thorium and is studied for future industrial use in nuclear technology.
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This page is based on the article Uranium published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 03, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
