Uranium is used as a colorant in uranium glass, producing orange-red to lemon yellow hues. 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 planet Uranus. Eugène-Melchior Péligot was the first person to isolate the metal, and its radioactive properties were uncovered in 1896 by Antoine Becquerel. Research by Enrico Fermi and others starting in 1934 led to its use as a fuel in the nuclear power industry and in Little Boy, the first nuclear weapon used in war. An ensuing arms race during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union produced tens of thousands of nuclear weapons that used enriched uranium and uranium-derived plutonium. The security of those weapons and their fissile material following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 is an ongoing concern for public health and safety.
Applications
The major application of uranium in the military sector is in high-density penetrators. This ammunition consists of depleted uranium (DU) alloyed with 1–2% other elements. At high impact speed, the density, hardness, and flammability of the projectile enable destruction of heavily armored targets. Tank armor and the removable armor on combat vehicles are also hardened with depleted uranium plates. The use of DU became a contentious political-environmental issue after the use of DU munitions by the US, UK and other countries during wars in the Persian Gulf and the Balkans raised questions of uranium compounds left in the soil (see Gulf War Syndrome).
Depleted uranium is also used as a shielding material in some containers used to store and transport radioactive materials. Other uses of DU include counterweights for aircraft control surfaces, as ballast for missile re-entry vehicles and as a shielding material. Due to its high density, this material is found in inertial guidance devices and in gyroscopic compasses. DU is preferred over similarly dense metals due to its ability to be easily machined and cast as well as its relatively low cost. Counter to popular belief, the main risk of exposure to DU is chemical poisoning by uranium oxide rather than radioactivity (uranium being only a weak alpha emitter).
During the later stages of World War II, the entire Cold War, and to a lesser extent afterwards, uranium has been used as the fissile explosive material to produce nuclear weapons. Two major types of fission bombs were built: a relatively simple device that uses uranium-235 and a more complicated mechanism that uses uranium-238-derived plutonium-239. Later, a much more complicated and far more powerful fusion bomb that uses a plutonium-based device in a uranium casing to cause a mixture of tritium and deuterium to undergo nuclear fusion was built.
Applications
The major application of uranium in the military sector is in high-density penetrators. This ammunition consists of depleted uranium (DU) alloyed with 1–2% other elements. At high impact speed, the density, hardness, and flammability of the projectile enable destruction of heavily armored targets. Tank armor and the removable armor on combat vehicles are also hardened with depleted uranium plates. The use of DU became a contentious political-environmental issue after the use of DU munitions by the US, UK and other countries during wars in the Persian Gulf and the Balkans raised questions of uranium compounds left in the soil (see Gulf War Syndrome).
Depleted uranium is also used as a shielding material in some containers used to store and transport radioactive materials. Other uses of DU include counterweights for aircraft control surfaces, as ballast for missile re-entry vehicles and as a shielding material. Due to its high density, this material is found in inertial guidance devices and in gyroscopic compasses. DU is preferred over similarly dense metals due to its ability to be easily machined and cast as well as its relatively low cost. Counter to popular belief, the main risk of exposure to DU is chemical poisoning by uranium oxide rather than radioactivity (uranium being only a weak alpha emitter).
During the later stages of World War II, the entire Cold War, and to a lesser extent afterwards, uranium has been used as the fissile explosive material to produce nuclear weapons. Two major types of fission bombs were built: a relatively simple device that uses uranium-235 and a more complicated mechanism that uses uranium-238-derived plutonium-239. Later, a much more complicated and far more powerful fusion bomb that uses a plutonium-based device in a uranium casing to cause a mixture of tritium and deuterium to undergo nuclear fusion was built.
The most visible civilian use of uranium is as the thermal power source used in nuclear power plants. After Marie Curie discovered radium in uranium ore, a huge industry developed to mine uranium so as to extract the radium, which was used to make glow-in-the-dark paints for clock and aircraft dials. This left a prodigious quantity of uranium as a 'waste product', since it takes three metric tons of uranium to extract one gram of radium. This 'waste product' was diverted to the glazing industry, making uranium glazes very inexpensive and abundant. In addition to the pottery glazes, uranium tile glazes accounted for the bulk of the use, including common bathroom and kitchen tiles which can be produced in green, yellow, mauve, black, blue, red and other colors.
Uranium was also used in photographic chemicals (esp. uranium nitrate as a toner), in lamp filaments, to improve the appearance of dentures, and in the leather and wood industries for stains and dyes. Uranium salts are mordants of silk or wool. Uranyl acetate and uranyl formate are used as electron-dense "stains" in transmission electron microscopy, to increase the contrast of biological specimens in ultrathin sections and in negative staining of viruses, isolated cell organelles and macromolecules.
The discovery of the radioactivity of uranium ushered in additional scientific and practical uses of the element. The long half-life of the isotope uranium-238 (4.51 × 109 years) makes it well-suited for use in estimating the age of the earliest igneous rocks and for other types of radiometric dating (including uranium-thorium dating and uranium-lead dating). Uranium metal is used for X-ray targets in the making of high-energy X-rays.
Uranium was also used in photographic chemicals (esp. uranium nitrate as a toner), in lamp filaments, to improve the appearance of dentures, and in the leather and wood industries for stains and dyes. Uranium salts are mordants of silk or wool. Uranyl acetate and uranyl formate are used as electron-dense "stains" in transmission electron microscopy, to increase the contrast of biological specimens in ultrathin sections and in negative staining of viruses, isolated cell organelles and macromolecules.
The discovery of the radioactivity of uranium ushered in additional scientific and practical uses of the element. The long half-life of the isotope uranium-238 (4.51 × 109 years) makes it well-suited for use in estimating the age of the earliest igneous rocks and for other types of radiometric dating (including uranium-thorium dating and uranium-lead dating). Uranium metal is used for X-ray targets in the making of high-energy X-rays.
Uranium glass used as lead-in seals in a vacuum capacitor
