Watch How Plutonium, the Most Toxic Element in the World is Created
Surely you know what Plutonium is. It's one of the most dangerous, radioactive, toxic elements in the world. It's used in atomic bombs and the production of nuclear energy. And it's responsible for killing a massive number of people in the world, in mere seconds.
Now, it's expected that by mid-2020, plutonium oxide will be used in spacecraft.
Radiochemical Engineering Development Center is synthesizing plutonium and they're making the plutonium to power spacecraft. This spacecraft is designed to go to really distant places, which are too far from the Sun. They need to use plutonium-238 for that to generate heat through its radioactive decay and power the spacecraft.
In the video, you can see that the production of plutonium at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Since plutonium is made from neptunium and neptunium is supplied to the lab as a solution.
So they convert the neptunium liquid solution to solid. And in the video, you can find out the process of converting the neptunium solution to solid.
This element which is so deadly and toxic is now tried to be turned into a useful element that will end up in space. So weird, right? Do you think that people who invented plutonium, or people who were killed by plutonium did think that this element would be used for a useful purpose in the future? Well, we don't know.
But it's obvious that science is wondrous and it never stops amazing us.
And if you're wondering about the creation process of the most dangerous and toxic yet soon to be a space traveler element, then watch the video.