1. Uranium
By Konrad Poker

2. General Information Uranium is a grey metal
Its symbol is U, its atomic number is 92
Uranium can have between 141 – 146 neutrons and is the heaviest naturally occurring element
The most common isotopes that can also be found in nature are uranium-238 with 146 neutrons and uranium-235 with 143 neutrons
It is naturally found in low concentrations in water, rock and soil. Commercially it gets extracted from uranium bearing metals such as uraninite.
Uranium is slightly radioactive and slowly decays by emitting alpha-particles. The half-life of uranium-238 is 4.47 billion years and that for uranium-235 is 704 million years.

3. History of Uranium
Uranium was found in 1789 by the German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth in his laboratory in Berlin who
It was named after the planet Uranus which was discovered eight years earlier
The French professor Eugène-Melchior Pélligot in Paris was the first who isolated a sample of Uranium
Martin Heinrich Klaproth
Eugène-Melchior Pélligot

4. Uses
Before the radioactivity of Uranium was know it was used to make uranium glass
Uranium glass is a glass that contains about 1% - 1.3% of Uranium which gives it a yellow or yellow-green colour
Another use for Uranium is in nuclear power plants which typically use fuel that is enriched with about 3% of uranium-235

5. Uranium is also military used
The variation depleted uranium, which is Uranium that mostly contains uranium-238, is used for high-density penetrators which can destroy heavily armored targets and to harden armored vehicles
Enriched Uranium is used for nuclear weapons
In the Purex – Process the used Uranium gets enriched and split from the other burned metals to get enriched Uranium which is used in nuclear weapons

6. Common Reactions Uranium mostly occurs as 4+ or 6+ in nature
The 6+ easily reacts to UO22+ which reacts with OH-, NO3- and SO42-
All uranium-salt compounds, like UO2(NO3)2, are very toxic!!!
The easier the compound gets dissolved the more toxic it is!!!!