Nuclear chemistry · 1912–1999
Glenn T. Seaborg
Seaborg led the Berkeley group that dominated element synthesis for two decades, directed the plutonium chemistry section of the Manhattan Project, and later chaired the United States Atomic Energy Commission. He was as much an organizer of separations chemistry as a discoverer: the ion-exchange methods his groups developed for separating chemically similar heavy elements are the practical legacy alongside the elements themselves.
Explore the supporting references at the foot of this article.
Contribution & context
He shared in the identification of plutonium in 1940–41 and of americium, curium, berkelium, californium, einsteinium, fermium and mendelevium, and proposed the actinide concept in 1944 — a second inner-transition series that reorganised the bottom of the table and predicted how the new elements would separate. He shared the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with McMillan.
About Plutonium-238science.nasa.gov — PlutoniumRSC Periodic Table — Plutoniumscience.nasa.gov — Plutoniumsolarsystem.nasa.gov — Plutonium
Discoveries in context
Making elements beyond uranium ↗
Eleven elements heavier than uranium were made rather than found, and identifying them meant inventing chemistry that works on a few thousand atoms at a time.
Sources & further reading
- About Plutonium-238 ↗NASA ScienceReference explanation · Source checked
- science.nasa.gov — Plutonium ↗science.nasa.govReference explanation · Source checked
- RSC Periodic Table — Plutonium ↗Royal Society of ChemistryReference explanation · Source checked
- science.nasa.gov — Plutonium ↗science.nasa.govReference explanation · Source checked
- solarsystem.nasa.gov — Plutonium ↗solarsystem.nasa.govReference explanation · Source checked
Sources and further reading. What the review labels mean