A team of scientists from the Berkeley Lab has reported some properties of element 99 in the periodic table called “Einsteinium,” named after Albert Einstein. It was discovered in 1952 in the debris of the first hydrogen bomb (the detonation of a thermonuclear device called “Ivy Mike” in the Pacific Ocean). Since its discovery, scientists have not been able to do many experiments with it, because it is difficult to make and is highly radioactive. Therefore, very little is known about this element.
This new study published last week in the journal Nature has allowed researchers to characterize some of the element’s properties for the first time.
The discovery of the element
When Ivy Mike was detonated on November 1, 1952, as part of a test at a remote island location called Elugelab in the Eniwetok Atoll in the South Pacific, it set off an explosion that was about 500 times more destructive than the one that took place in Nagasaki. The precipitate material from this explosion was then sent for analysis to Berkeley, California, which was examined by Gregory Choppin, Stanley Thompson, Albert Ghiorso, and Bernard Harvey, who had discovered and identified more than 200 atoms of the new element within a month.
According to a Chemistry World podcast, the discovery of the element was not revealed for at least three years and it was first suggested that the element be named after Einstein in the Physical Review in 1955.
What did the researchers find?
The scientists worked with less than 250 nanograms of the artificial element, which was manufactured in the High Flux Isotope Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, one of the few places in the world that can make einsteinium.
Specifically, the team worked with einsteinium-254, one of the element’s more stable isotopes with a half-life of 276 days. The most abundant isotope of the element, einsteinium 253, has a half-life of 20 days.
Due to its high radioactivity and short half-life of all einsteinium isotopes, even if the element was present on Earth during its formation, it is most certainly decayed. This is the reason that it does not occur in nature and must be manufactured with very precise and intense processes.
Therefore, the element has been produced in very small quantities so far and its use is limited except for scientific research. The element is also not visible to the naked eye and after it was discovered it took more than nine years to make enough of it so that it could be seen with the naked eye.
In part, the small amounts of Einsteinium created reflect the difficulty of producing it. But it also receives the sad credit of having no known uses. There really is no reason to make einsteinium, except as a waypoint on the route to something else. It is an element without a role in life, ”said the Chemical World podcast.
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For the recent study, using an accurate X-ray produced by a particle accelerator, the scientists were able to examine this element to find out how it binds with atoms. By studying this atomic arrangement, scientists can discover interesting chemical properties of other elements and isotopes that could be useful for nuclear energy and radiopharmaceutical production. Rebecca Aberge, who co-led the study, was quoted in a press release.