Plutonium-244
| Actinides and fission products by half-life | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Actinides[1] by decay chain | Half-life range (y) |
Fission products of 235U by yield[2] | ||||||
| 4n | 4n+1 | 4n+2 | 4n+3 | |||||
| 4.5–7% | 0.04–1.25% | <0.001% | ||||||
| 228Ra№ | 4–6 | † | 155Euþ | |||||
| 244Cmƒ | 241Puƒ | 250Cf | 227Ac№ | 10–29 | 90Sr | 85Kr | 113mCdþ | |
| 232Uƒ | 238Puƒ№ | 243Cmƒ | 29–97 | 137Cs | 151Smþ | 121mSn | ||
| 248Bk[3] | 249Cfƒ | 242mAmƒ | 141–351 |
No fission products | ||||
| 241Amƒ | 251Cfƒ[4] | 430–900 | ||||||
| 226Ra№ | 247Bk | 1.3 k – 1.6 k | ||||||
| 240Puƒ№ | 229Th№ | 246Cmƒ | 243Amƒ | 4.7 k – 7.4 k | ||||
| 245Cmƒ | 250Cm | 8.3 k – 8.5 k | ||||||
| 239Puƒ№ | 24.1 k | |||||||
| 230Th№ | 231Pa№ | 32 k – 76 k | ||||||
| 236Npƒ | 233Uƒ№ | 234U№ | 150 k – 250 k | ‡ | 99Tc₡ | 126Sn | ||
| 248Cm | 242Puƒ | 327 k – 375 k | 79Se₡ | |||||
| 1.53 M | 93Zr | |||||||
| 237Npƒ№ | 2.1 M – 6.5 M | 135Cs₡ | 107Pd | |||||
| 236U№ | 247Cmƒ | 15 M – 24 M | 129I₡ | |||||
| 244Pu№ | 80 M |
... nor beyond 15.7 M years[5] | ||||||
| 232Th№ | 238U№ | 235Uƒ№ | 0.7 G – 14.1 G | |||||
|
Legend for superscript symbols | ||||||||
Plutonium-244 (244Pu) is an isotope of plutonium that has a half-life of 80 million years. This is longer than any of the other isotopes of plutonium and longer than any other actinide isotope except for the three naturally abundant ones: uranium-235 (704 million years), uranium-238 (4.468 billion years), and thorium-232 (14.05 billion years).
Accurate measurements, beginning in the early 1970s, have detected primordial plutonium-244,[6] making it the second-shortest-lived primordial nuclide after 146Sm. The amount of 244Pu in the pre-Solar nebula (4.57×109 years ago) was estimated as 0.008 of amount of 238U.[7] As the age of the Earth is about 57 half-lives of 244Pu, the amount of plutonium-244 left should be very small; Hoffman et al. estimated its content in the rare-earth mineral bastnasite as c244=1.0×10−18 g/g, which corresponded to the content in the Earth crust as low as 3×10−25 g/g[6] (i.e. the total mass of plutonium-244 in the Earth crust is about 9 g). Since plutonium-244 cannot be easily produced by natural neutron capture in the low neutron activity environment of uranium ores (see below), its presence cannot plausibly be explained by any other means than creation by r-process nucleosynthesis in supernovae. Plutonium-244 thus should be the second shortest-lived and the heaviest primordial isotope yet detected or theoretically predicted.
However, the detection of primordial 244Pu in 1971 is not confirmed by recent, more sensitive measurements[7] using the method of accelerator mass spectrometry. In this study, no traces of plutonium-244 in the samples of bastnasite (taken from the same mine as in the early study) were observed, so only an upper limit on the 244Pu content was obtained: c244 < 0.15×10−18 g/g, which is 370 (or less) atoms per gram of the sample, at least 7 times lower than the abundance measured by Hoffman et al.
Interstellar plutonium-244 has been detected in meteorite dust in marine sediments.[8]
Unlike plutonium-238, plutonium-239, plutonium-240, plutonium-241, and plutonium-242, plutonium-244 is not produced in quantity by the nuclear fuel cycle, because further neutron capture on plutonium-242 produces plutonium-243 which has a short halflife (5 hours) and quickly beta decays to americium-243 before having much opportunity to further capture neutrons in any but very high neutron flux environments. However, a nuclear weapon explosion can produce some plutonium-244 by rapid successive neutron capture.
References
- ↑ Plus radium (element 88). While actually a sub-actinide, it immediately precedes actinium (89) and follows a three-element gap of instability after polonium (84) where no isotopes have half-lives of at least four years (the longest-lived isotope in the gap is radon-222 with a half life of less than four days). Radium's longest lived isotope, at 1,600 years, thus merits the element's inclusion here.
- ↑ Specifically from thermal neutron fission of U-235, e.g. in a typical nuclear reactor.
- ↑ Milsted, J.; Friedman, A. M.; Stevens, C. M. (1965). "The alpha half-life of berkelium-247; a new long-lived isomer of berkelium-248". Nuclear Physics. 71 (2): 299. doi:10.1016/0029-5582(65)90719-4.
"The isotopic analyses disclosed a species of mass 248 in constant abundance in three samples analysed over a period of about 10 months. This was ascribed to an isomer of Bk248 with a half-life greater than 9 y. No growth of Cf248 was detected, and a lower limit for the β− half-life can be set at about 104 y. No alpha activity attributable to the new isomer has been detected; the alpha half-life is probably greater than 300 y." - ↑ This is the heaviest isotope with a half-life of at least four years before the "Sea of Instability".
- ↑ Excluding those "classically stable" isotopes with half-lives significantly in excess of 232Th; e.g., while 113mCd has a half-life of only fourteen years, that of 113Cd is nearly eight quadrillion years.
- 1 2 D. C. Hoffman, F. O. Lawrence, J. L. Mewherter, F. M. Rourke: "Detection of Plutonium-244 in Nature", in: Nature 1971, 234, 132–134; doi:10.1038/234132a0.
- 1 2 J. Lachner et al. Attempt to detect primordial 244Pu on Earth. Phys. Rev. C 85 (2012) 015801. doi:10.1103/PhysRevC.85.015801
- ↑ Wallner, A.; Faestermann, T.; Feige, J.; Feldstein, C.; Knie, K.; Korschinek, G.; Kutschera, W.; Ofan, A.; Paul, M.; Quinto, F.; Rugel, G.; Steier, P. (2015). "Abundance of live 244Pu in deep-sea reservoirs on Earth points to rarity of actinide nucleosynthesis". Nature Communications. 6: 5956. doi:10.1038/ncomms6956. ISSN 2041-1723.