Uranium

media type="custom" key="10774632"

**Basic Information**
 * Element Name: Uranium
 * Atomic Symbol: U
 * Atomic Number: 92
 * Atomic Mass: 238.0289
 * Standard State of Matter: Solid at 298 K
 * Density: 18.95
 * Boiling Point: 4404
 * Melting Point: 1408

**Uranium** By: Adian Truong Uranium is an element on the periodic table. Uranium has many interesting facts, a history, how this particular element got its name, usages of it, and compounds that contain this element.

There are many interesting facts about the element Uranium. Uranium is a radioactive element. It is extremely toxic both chemically and radioactively. Uranium has a color of silvery white or metallic gray. Uranium contamination can result in environmental issues. On the periodic table, uranium is in the element category Actinide.

Uranium has a history. Uranium was discovered by the German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth in 1789. Martin Klaproth discovered uranium from the mineral pitchblende. Although, thinking that Klaproth extracted pure uranium from the pitchblende, it was actually uranium dioxide. As a result of observing that pure uranium reacted differently to uranium tetrachloride, Eugène-Melchoir Péligot, a French chemist obtained pure uranium by heating uranium dioxide in a platinum crucible (a vessel used to melt a substance at high temperatures) with potassium. In the ending of World War 2 and the Cold War, a type of uranium was used for explosives in two significant types of fission bombs. There was a way uranium got its name. Uranium got its name from the planet Uranus.

There are many usages for the element uranium. Uranium is used in nuclear technology. For example, uranium is used in nuclear weapons like tank or other removable armor, shielding material, counterweights for aircraft, and bombs. Uranium was additionally used in nuclear reactors and as a thermal power source for nuclear power plants.

There are compounds that contain uranium. To begin with, the sources of uranium are many rocks, large amounts of pitchblende and carnotite, uranium ores, uraninite, autunite, phosphate rock, lignite, and monazite sand. Uranium is not a rare element. It is more common than the elements beryllium or tungsten. Uranium comes in the compounds ammonium diuranate, cerium uranium blue, ferrouranium, MOX fuel, uranium dioxide, uranium nitride, uranium sulfate, and many other compounds. Uranium is usually sold in the form of sodium diuranate that goes by the term “yellowcake.”

media type="custom" key="10820952" align="center" width="150" height="150"



= **Bibliography** = = = Author Not Stated. "No Entry." __Encyclopedia Americana__. 27 ed. Danbury, Connecticut: Grolier Incorperated, 1997.

Bentor, Yinon. "Periodic Table: Uranium." __Chemical Elements.__1996. 10 Oct. 2011. [].

Winter, Mark. "Uranium." __Webelements.__1993. 10 Oct. 2011. [].