![]() This led to Rutherford, a physicist, receiving the 1908 Nobel Prize in chemistry, for essentially performing alchemy. This demonstrated the possibility of transmuting elements. In this reaction, a nitrogen nucleus reacted with a high-speed helium nucleus to form two new nuclei and a proton. In 1919, Rutherford carried out the first nuclear reaction between these alpha particles and nitrogen. In early experiments, high-speed alpha particles from 214Bi were used to strike a nucleus. In a nuclear reactor, the target nucleus is struck with neutrons, resulting in fission of nuclei. With this process, some of the protons from the bombarding particles are lodged in the target nucleus, promoting the transmutation into a different element. Most nuclear reactions involve the artificial transmutation of elements, although they are generally referred to more specifically as " fission", " fusion", or "irradiation" instead of being referred to broadly as transmutation.Īrtificial transmutation can be accomplished through the use of particle accelerators that strike elements with alpha particles, deuterons, or small nuclei. All of the elements with atomic numbers greater than 92 - such as plutonium - are man-made elements created through transmutation. This collision causes the atom to be changed in some way. Artificial TransmutationĪrtificial or induced transmutation occurs when atoms of one element are struck with particles in a linear accelerator, cyclotron, or synchrotron. Nuclear transmutations can occur during the spontaneous radioactive decay of naturally occurring thorium and uranium. For example, uranium-238 transmutes spontaneously into lead-206 through a series of steps. These elements will be transformed into a stable element over a series of decays or a decay chain. ![]() Natural or spontaneous transmutation occurs in unstable, radioactive elements. This transmutation process can be either natural or artificial. When the number of protons in the nucleus of an atom changes, the identity of that atom changes as it is turned into another element or isotope. Transmutation or nuclear transmutation is a process that involves a change in the nucleus of an atom.
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