einsteinium

einsteinium (Es), synthetic chemical element of the actinoid series of the periodic table, atomic number 99. Not occurring in nature, einsteinium (as the isotope einsteinium-253) was first produced by intense neutron irradiation of uranium-238 during the detonation of nuclear weapons. This isotope was identified in December 1952 by Albert Ghiorso and coworkers at Berkeley, California, in debris taken from the first thermonuclear (hydrogen bomb) explosion, “Mike,” in the South Pacific (November 1952). The element was named after the German-born physicist Albert Einstein.

The material was first collected on filter paper by drone airplanes flying through the radioactive explosion clouds; later, einsteinium and element 100 (fermium) were positively identified in coral gathered from Enewetak Atoll. In each case the identification required chemical separation and observations of characteristic nuclear reactions in laboratories.

All einsteinium isotopes are radioactive. Mixtures of the isotopes einsteinium-253 (20.5-day half-life), einsteinium-254 (276-day half-life), and einsteinium-255 (39.8-day half-life) can be produced by intensive slow-neutron irradiation of elements of lower atomic number, such as plutonium.

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Despite the short half-lives and scarcity of einsteinium isotopes, einsteinium metal has been prepared in milligram (10⁻³ gram) amounts. Unlike most of the lanthanoid metals and the actinoids americium through californium, einsteinium metal has a face-centred cubic structure resembling the metallic lanthanoids europium and ytterbium. Tracer studies indicate that the +3 oxidation state exists in solid compounds and in aqueous solution as the Es³⁺ ion; there is also some evidence for a +2 state in some nonaqueous solutions, solid solutions, and gaseous species. Einsteinium has chemical properties very similar to those of the other actinoid elements in the tripositive state. Einsteinium-255 and einsteinium-256 eject electrons to form isotopes of fermium (atomic number 100), and mendelevium (atomic number 101) isotopes have been produced by bombarding einsteinium-253 “targets” with alpha particles in cyclotrons or linear accelerators.