An ordinary metallic rock (such as lead)?
I once knew a guy who said he thought he saw some in physics lab and it looked like table salt, but I doubt that Plutonium is really what he saw.
Anybody have a link to a picture of it?
I don’t think anybody saw any plutonium in physics lab. It’s extremely poisonous. Although I suppose he could have been looking through the window of some special storage container…
If I remember correctly, plutonium looks like silver, more or less. I don’t remember if it has a special crystalline shape, though. Anyway, I saw a big photographic periodic table, and most of the metals were shiny and colorless, the only exceptions I remember being gold and copper.
Nothing I write about any person or group should be applied to a larger group.
- Boris Badenov
Hey, look what I found!
http://nobel.scas.bcit.bc.ca/resource/ptable/ptblegif/pu.gif
Ooh, my first image on a SDMB page. I hope it worked!
It’s from this rad website: http://nobel.scas.bcit.bc.ca/resource/ptable/pu.htm
Nothing I write about any person or group should be applied to a larger group.
- Boris Badenov
Yay!
It really doesn’t look colorless, though. I think gold and copper are gonna be made about Mickey Mouse’s dog’s element muscling in on their territory.
Who said that image was of pure plutonium? I’ll bet it’s silver when it’s pure.
Ray
Hey, I’d never thought of that. Actually I just re-read the page, and it says that it is silver when pure, only it gets coated with a yellowish oxide after exposure to air. So I guess gold and copper get to keep their club nice and small.
Funny thing is, I’d kind of thought they would have the stuff in some kind of super-duper everything-proof storage device, which would keep it from undergoing any chemical reactions, and allow for photos of pure plutonium. I hope it’s not just sitting on a shelf next to the bunsen burners. 
More info than you probably wanted on Plutonium.
Judging from the name, I would say it is an off golden color, with black markings… 
I’ve seen pictures of plutonium, and it just looks like an anonymous silvery metal. Your friend who claimed it looks like table salt probably saw a plutonium compound.
My question is, what does neptunium look like?
God is dead. -Nietzsche
Nietzsche is dead. -God
Neitzsche is God. -Dead
I don’t know. I choose to remain a considerable distance from any stores of the stuff, like 1000 miles or so and up wind.
Mark
“Think of it as Evolution in action.”
I took the liberty to colorize the above image for it to be best represented.
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Okay, so I had a little time on my hands today!
From the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 60th Edition (1980):
Thorium is a silvery-white metal…
Protactinium has a bright metallic luster…
Uranium is a heavy, silvery-white metal…
Neptunium metal has a silvery appearance…
Plutonium … metal has a silvery appearance…
americium metal is whiter and more silvery than plutonium or neptunium…
Curium is silver in color…
Berkelium … is expected to be a silvery metal…
As of 1980, no one had ever made enough of the elemental forms of Bk and higher elements to know exactly what they looked like.
Waneman “took the liberty to colorize the above image for it to be best represented.”
Not bad, but can you transmute base metal into gold?
Not only an alchemist - he got the image centered on my screen. That’s a first.
It should be pointed out that plutonium is not all that poisonous, provided you do not inhale a very tiny particle. If you eat it, or get it on your skin, it should do no damage. (Of course, I am not going to volunteer to try!)
Some toxins and nerve gasses can be considered more dangerous since they have many more vectors to cause problems (skin absorption, inhalation…), and tiny amounts can kill you much more quickly.
Maybe it would be a good question for Cecil: What is the most toxic substance?
I gotta guess that KeithB is kidding around… Pu is about the most toxic thing you can think about. It’s not a neurotoxin or lung irritant so it won’t kill in a hurry, but small quantities can do so much damage to your marrow, liver, and blood that it’s not a lot of consolation that you survived Day 1.
My recollection of DOE lab first-aid rules said that tourniquet and high amputation really weren’t overreaction to bloodstream exposure to plutonium dust. Never been done, but they think about it.
It’s exothermically reactive with a water, but a lot less so than K or Na. The problem with Pu is that all of its reaction products give you grief too. Wouldn’t want that in my eye.
One last word for our Japanese friends (and the guys at Hanford): It’s called critical mass, not critical concentration !
Boris said:
I’ve often wondered if the more radioactive elements “rusted”. Thanks for the info!
BTW–is there any practical use for this oxidation?
-David
I believe that Roachman may have been misinformed.
Plutonium is, of course, a heavy metal, and like other heavy metals, such as lead, is preferentially deposited in the bones and in the liver (about 90% of Pu will end of in one of these two areas).
However, its radiological hazard is relatively low. This is in part because the radioactive half-life is much shorter than the biological half-life (20 years in the liver, 50 years in the skeleton). A dose that gives 50 rem to a critical organ (50 rem is estimated to produce an increased chance of cancer of10[sup]-4[/sup]) would be about 0.29 µg – more than is likely to be inhaled or ingested. At the same time, this same amount of botulin toxin is flirting with the LD[sub]50[/sub] (Berkowitz, B.J., et al., 1972. Superviolence: The Civil Threat of Mass Destruction Weapons. Santa Barbara, CA: ADCON (Advanced Concepts Research) Corporation, Report A72-034-10, 29 September.).
“Kings die, and leave their crowns to their sons. Shmuel HaKatan took all the treasures in the world, and went away.”
I may not remember everything from reactor engineering class, but I do remember the half-life of Pu239; it’s 24110 years. The Pu238 like they use in the Cassini batteries has a half-life of 87 years.
I guess they were messing with our impressionable little heads; the chemical toxicity of Pu turns out to be not much worse than lead. I still wouldn’t sprinkle it on my donuts (though one scientist bet Ralph Nader he’d eat more Pu than Nader would take of caffeine).
Here’s a link which calms me down some whenever I’m near the Tri-Cities:
http://www.llnl.gov/csts/publications/sutcliffe/
Sorry about the thread misdirection. How’d we go from “what’s it look like” to “what’s it taste like?”.
Don’t feel bad, Roach - I too was under the mistaken assumption plutonium was extremely toxic. Akat, do you have any links we can peruse for more info on this specific?
What was all that fuss with Karen Silkwood?
Didn’t she die from ingesting plutonium?