Uranium | Wikipedia audio article
Channel: wikipedia tts
Date: 2019-01-31

This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium


00:05:35 1 Characteristics
00:09:06 2 Applications
00:09:48 2.1 Military
00:10:21 2.2 Civilian
00:10:28 3 History
00:10:38 3.1 Pre-discovery use
00:14:05 3.2 Discovery
00:18:10 3.3 Fission research
00:18:19 3.4 Nuclear weaponry
00:19:22 3.5 Reactors
00:21:23 3.6 Prehistoric naturally occurring fission
00:25:05 3.7 Contamination and the Cold War legacy
00:26:34 4 Occurrence
00:28:35 4.1 Origin
00:29:48 4.2 Biotic and abiotic
00:33:02 4.3 Production and mining
00:33:11 4.4 Resources and reserves
00:35:13 4.5 Supplies
00:40:25 5 Compounds
00:43:03 5.1 Oxidation states and oxides
00:45:55 5.1.1 Oxides
00:48:11 5.1.2 Aqueous chemistry
00:48:21 5.1.3 Carbonates
00:48:31 5.1.4 Effects of pH
00:50:56 5.2 Hydrides, carbides and nitrides
00:52:36 5.3 Halides
00:53:27 6 Isotopes
00:54:24 6.1 Natural concentrations
00:56:35 6.2 Enrichment
00:59:35 7 Human exposure
00:59:44 7.1 Effects and precautions
01:05:13 8 See also
01:08:54 9 Notes
01:12:04 10 References
01:14:41 11 External links



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SUMMARY
=======
Uranium is a chemical element with symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weakly radioactive because all isotopes of uranium are unstable, with half-lives varying between 159,200 years and 4.5 billion years. The most common isotopes in natural uranium are uranium-238 (which has 146 neutrons and accounts for over 99%) and uranium-235 (which has 143 neutrons). Uranium has the highest atomic weight of the primordially occurring elements. Its density is about 70% higher than that of lead, and slightly lower than that of gold or tungsten. It occurs naturally in low concentrations of a few parts per million in soil, rock and water, and is commercially extracted from uranium-bearing minerals such as uraninite.In nature, uranium is found as uranium-238 (99.2739–99.2752%), uranium-235 (0.7198–0.7202%), and a very small amount of uranium-234 (0.0050–0.0059%). Uranium decays slowly by emitting an alpha particle. The half-life of uranium-238 is about 4.47 billion years and that of uranium-235 is 704 million years, making them useful in dating the age of the Earth.
Many contemporary uses of uranium exploit its unique nuclear properties. Uranium-235 is the only naturally occurring fissile isotope, which makes it widely used in nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons. However, because of the tiny amounts found in nature, uranium needs to undergo enrichment so that enough uranium-235 is present. Uranium-238 is fissionable by fast neutrons, and is fertile, meaning it can be transmuted to fissile plutonium-239 in a nuclear reactor. Another fissile isotope, uranium-233, can be produced from natural thorium and is also important in nuclear technology. Uranium-238 has a small probability for spontaneous fission or even induced fission with fast neutrons; uranium-235 and to a lesser degree uranium-233 have a much higher fission cross-section for slow neutrons. In sufficient concentration, these isotopes maintain a sustained nuclear chain reaction. This generates the heat in nuclear power reactors, and produces the fissile material for nuclear weapons. Depleted uranium (238U) is used in kinetic energy penetrators and armor plating. Uranium is used as a colorant in uranium glass, producing lemon yellow to green colors. Uranium glass fluoresces green in ultraviolet light. It was also used for tinting and shading in early photography.
The 1789 discovery of uranium in the mineral pitchblende is credited to Martin Heinrich Klaproth, who named the new element after the recently discovered planet Uranus. Eugène-Melchior Péligot was the first person to isolate the metal and it ...