Explained: What is Einsteinium, the mysterious element named after Albert Einstein?

A team of scientists from the Berkeley lab reported some of the properties of element 99 in the periodic table called “Einsteinium,” named after Albert Einstein. It was discovered in 1952 in the debris of the first hydrogen bomb (the detonation of a thermonuclear device called “Ivy Mike” in the Pacific Ocean). Since its discovery, scientists have not been able to perform many experiments with it because it is difficult to create and highly radioactive. Therefore, very little is known about this element.

With this new study published in the journal Nature last week, for the first time researchers were able to characterize some of the properties of the element.

The discovery of the element

When Ivy Mike exploded on November 1, 1952, as part of a test on a remote island called Elugelab on Eniwetok Atoll in the South Pacific, it produced an explosion that was about 500 times more destructive than the explosion that performed in Nagasaki. . Subsequently, the fallout from this explosion was sent to Berkeley, California for analysis, which was examined by Gregory Choppin, Stanley Thompson, Albert Ghiorso and Bernard Harvey, who within a month had discovered and identified more than 200 atoms of the new element.

According to a podcast run by Chemistry World, the discovery of the element was not revealed for at least three years, and it was first suggested that the element was named after Einstein in the physical journal in 1955.

What did the researchers find?

Scientists worked with less than 250 nanograms of the man-made element, which was made at the High Flux Isotope Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is one of the few places in the world capable of making einsteinium.

Specifically, the team worked with einsteinium-254, one of the most stable isotopes of the element which has a half-life of 276 days. The most common isotope of the element, einsteinium 253, has a half-life of 20 days.

Due to its high radioactivity and short half-life of all einsteinium isotopes, even though the element was present on Earth during its formation, it most certainly decayed. This is the reason why it cannot be found in nature and has to be made by very precise and intense processes.

Therefore, so far, the element has been produced in very small quantities and its use is limited except for scientific research purposes. The element is also not visible to the naked eye and after its discovery, it took over nine years to manufacture enough of it so that it could be seen with the naked eye.

“The small amounts of Einsteinium that have been made partly reflect the difficulty of producing it. But it also receives the sad recognition of having no known use. There really is no point in making einsteinium except as a waypoint on the route to produce something else. It’s an element without a role in life, ”the Chemical World podcast said.

For recent research, using an accurate x-ray produced by a particle accelerator, scientists were able to examine this element to find out how it binds to atoms. By studying this atomic arrangement, scientists can uncover interesting chemical properties of other elements and isotopes that could be useful for nuclear power generation and radiopharmaceuticals, said Rebecca Aberge, who co-led the study, in a communicated.