A team of scientists from the Berkeley Lab reported some of the properties of element 99 in the periodic table called “Einsteinium”, named after Albert Einstein. It was discovered in 1952 in the rubble of the first hydrogen bomb (the explosion of a thermonuclear device called “Ivy Mike” in the Pacific Ocean). Since its discovery, scientists have not been able to perform many experiments with it, because it is difficult to create and is very radioactive. Therefore, very little is known about this element.
With this new study published last week in the journal Nature, researchers were able to characterize some of the properties of the element for the first time.
The discovery of the element
When Ivy Mike exploded on November 1, 1952, as part of a test at a remote island location called Elugelab on the Eniwetok Atoll in the South Pacific, it produced an explosion that was about 500 times more destructive than the explosion that took place at Nagasaki. . The waste material from this explosion is then sent to Berkeley, California for analysis, which has been investigated by Gregory Choppin, Stanley Thompson, Albert Ghiorso and Bernard Harvey, who discovered and identified more than 200 atoms of the new element within a month.
According to a podcast hosted by Chemistry World, the discovery of the element was not made public for at least three years and it was first suggested that the element be named after Einstein in 1955.
What did the researchers find?
The scientists worked with less than 250 nanograms of the artificial element, manufactured at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s High Flux Isotope Reactor, which is one of the few places in the world that can make einsteinium.
The team worked specifically with einsteinium-254, one of the more stable isotopes of the element that has a half-life of 276 days. The most common isotope of the element, Einsteinium 253, has a half-life of 20 days.
Due to the high radioactivity and the short half-life of all einsteinium isotopes, it has definitely decayed, even if the element was present on Earth. This is the reason that it cannot be found in nature and that it has to be manufactured with very precise and intense processes.
Therefore, the element has so far been manufactured in very small quantities and its use has been limited, except for scientific research. The element is also not visible to the naked eye and after being discovered, it took nine years to manufacture enough of it so that it could be seen with the naked eye.
‘The small quantities of Einsteinium produced partly reflect the difficulty of producing it. But it also receives the sad praise that it has no known use. There is really no reason to make einsteinium except as a way to produce something else. It’s an element without a role in life, ” the Chemical World podcast said.
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For recent research, using an exact X-ray fabricated by a particle accelerator, scientists were able to investigate this element to find out how it binds to atoms. By studying this atomic series, scientists can discover interesting chemical properties of other elements and isotopes that could be useful for nuclear power production and radiopharmaceutical products, Rebecca Aberge, who led the study, said in a release.