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- Name : Uranium
- Symbol : U
- Atomic # : 92
- Atom weight: 238.03
- Melting P. : 1132
- Boiling P. : 3818
- Oxidation : +3, +4, +5, +6
- Pronounced : yoo-RAY-ni-em
- From : Named for planet Uranus
- Identified : Martin Heinrich Klaproth in 1789
- Appearance : Silvery-white, dense, ductile and malleable, radioactive metal.
- Note : Virtually all uranium and its compounds are used by the
- military and the nuclear power industry
-
- [Properties]
-
- Uranium is a heavy, silvery, and lustrous metal. It is fairly hard, yet
- ductile and malleable. It tarnishes in air with a thin oxide coating, and
- it reacts with water - especially boiling water. It dissolves in acids,
- but not in bases. It is not a very good conductor of electricity.
- Uranium is part of the actinide series of elements, a series that begins
- with actinium (Ac, element 89) and concludes with lawrencium (Lr, element
- 103).
- Uranium is best known for its consistently high level of radioactivity.
- Even most of the compounds, unless diluted to trace proportions, can pose
- health hazards. Uranium was the first substance known to be radioactive.
- Uranium is also quite famous for being one of the few nature elements
- that have fissionable isotopes. You cannot make a nuclear reactor or atom
- bomb out of anything that is radioactive; the material must be able to
- undergo a fission process whereby the numbers of neutrons in motion can
- multiply, rather than remain fixed or diminish.
-