Plutonium
Plutonio (Pu, Z=94)
- Date
- 1940 · confidence high
- Place
- Berkeley, California, United States
- Credited to
- Glenn Seaborg, Edwin McMillan, Joseph Kennedy and Arthur Wahl
- People
- 👤 Arthur Wahl1917–2006👤 Edwin Mattison McMillan1907–1991👤 Glenn T. Seaborg1912–1999👤 Joseph W. Kennedy1916–1957
- Field
- Matter & energy
What was discovered
Produced in December 1940 by bombarding uranium with deuterons; in 1941 Pu-239 was shown to be fissile, prompting its mass production at Hanford.
Kept secret until 1946.
What it led to
- Nagasaki bomb and nuclear arsenals
- Breeder reactors
- Radioisotope thermoelectric generators for space probes
Built on
- Neptunium1940
- Discovery of neptunium
- 60-inch cyclotron
Made possible
- EBR-I breeder reactor: first nuclear electricity20 de diciembre de 1951
- Implosion-type bomb
- Pu-238 RTG (Voyager, Curiosity)