Berkelium

Berkelium

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Berkelium

Bk redirects here. For other uses of the abbreviation, see BK (disambiguation). Berkelium ( or ) is a synthetic element with the symbol Bk and atomic number 97. A radioactive metallic element in the actinide series, berkelium was first synthesized by bombarding americium with alpha particles (helium ions) and was named after the University of California, Berkeley. Berkelium was the fifth transuranic element to be synthesized.

Notable characteristics
History
Isotopes
Nuclear fuel cycle
References
External links

Notable characteristics

University of California, Berkeley

Glenn T. Seaborg

60-Inch-Cyclotron

Weighable amounts of ²⁴⁹Bk (half-life 314 days) make it possible to determine some of its properties using macroscopic quantities. It is a silvery metal that would easily oxidize in air at elevated temperatures and would be soluble in dilute mineral acids.

X-ray diffraction techniques have been used to identify various berkelium compounds such as berkelium dioxide (BkO₂), berkelium fluoride (BkF₃), berkelium oxychloride (BkOCl), and berkelium trioxide (BkO₃).^[1] In 1962 visible amounts of berkelium chloride (BkCl₃) were isolated that weighed 3 billionths of a gram. The first time visible amounts of a pure berkelium compound were produced in 1958.^[2]

Like other actinides, berkelium bio-accumulates in skeletal tissue. This element has no known uses outside of basic research and plays no biological role.

History

Berkelium was first synthesized by Glenn T. Seaborg, Albert Ghiorso, Stanley G. Thompson, and Kenneth Street, Jr. at the University of California, Berkeley in December 1949. The team used a cyclotron to bombard a milligram-sized target of ²⁴¹Am with alpha particles to produce ²⁴³Bk (half-life 4.5 hours) and two free neutrons.^[3]^[4]^[5]^[6]

\mathrm{^{241}_{\ 95}Am\ +\ ^{4}_{2}He\ \longrightarrow \ ^{243}_{\ 97}Bk\ +\ 2\ ^{1}_{0}n}

One of the longest lived isotopes of the element, ²⁴⁹Bk (half-life 330 days), was later synthesized by subjecting a ²⁴⁴Cm target with an intense beam of neutrons.

Isotopes

19 radioisotopes of berkelium have been characterized, with the most stable being ²⁴⁷Bk with a half-life of 1380 years, ²⁴⁸Bk with a half-life of >9 years, and ²⁴⁹Bk with a half-life of 330 days. All of the remaining radioactive isotopes have half-lives that are less than 5 days, and the majority of these have half-lives that are less than 5 hours. This element also has 2 meta states, with the most stable being ^248mBk (t_½ 23.7 hours). The isotopes of berkelium range in atomic weight from 235.057 u (²³⁵Bk) to 254.091 u (²⁵⁴Bk).

Nuclear fuel cycle

In the nuclear fuel cycle, berkelium is produced by beta decay of curium. The first curium isotope to undergo beta decay is Cm-249 with a halflife of just over an hour, so Bk-249 is the only isotope of berkelium produced in significant quantities in nuclear reactors. Production of Bk-249 requires 11 successive neutron captures on uranium-238 without nuclear fission or alpha decay, so it is only produced in small amounts.

²⁴⁹Bk has a moderately large neutron capture cross section of 710 barns for thermal neutrons, 1200 barns resonance integral, but very low fission cross section for thermal neutrons. If still in a thermal reactor, much of it will therefore be converted to ²⁵⁰Bk which quickly decays to californium-250, but some alpha decays to curium-245.