TABLE OF CONTENTS Y.Nagame 1 , M.Hirata 1 , H.Nakahara 1,2
1 Advanced Science Research Center, Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute, Tokai, Ibaraki, Japan
2 Department of Chemistry, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Tokyo, Japan
This chapter reviews historical perspective of transuranium elements and recent progress on production and studying nuclear properties of transuranium nuclei. Exotic decay properties of heavy nuclei are also introduced. Chemical properties of transuranium elements in aqueous and solid states are summarized based on the actinide concept. For new application of studying transuranium, an X-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) method and computational chemistry are surveyed.
The history of the discovery of transuranium elements is a fascinating story that has been described in several articles (e.g., Seaborg and Loveland 1990, Morss and Fuger 1992, Seaborg 1995, Hoffman et al. 2000).
There were at least two difficulties in the discovery of transuranium elements; the first one was the chemical behavior of transuranium elements. Before Seaborg s proposal of the actinide concept (Seaborg 1945), it was believed that thorium, protactinium, uranium, neptunium, plutonium and the next elements 95 and 96 should be placed as the heavier members of groups 4 through 10. According to the actinide concept, it was expected that the new series should start with actinium as a prototype and end with the filling of the 5f electron shell at element 103, and that the heavier actinides would be trivalent homologues of the lanthanide series in which 4f orbitals were being...
