What is Einsteinium? Know all about the element named after Albert Einstein

Why in News?

Scientists in the Berkeley Lab have reported some of the properties of element 99 in the periodic table called “Einsteinium”. This element has been named after Albert Einstein. Not much is known about this element.

About Einsteinium:

1. Einsteinium was discovered in 1952.

2. Its discovery was not revealed for at least three years

3. It was suggested  in the Physical Review in 1955 that the element be named after Einstein

4. It was found in the debris of the first hydrogen bomb, through the detonation of a thermonuclear device called “Ivy Mike” in the Pacific Ocean.
5. It is strange how scientists have still not been able to perform experiments with it. It may be due to difficulty in its creation and due to its high radioactivity.
6. Einsteinium 253 is the most common isotope of this element and has a half-life of 20 days.
7. It has been noted that due to high radioactivity of the element, most of it has decayed since the beginning of the Earth. 
8. The element is invisible to the naked eye. 

What has happened?

1. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s High Flux Isotope Reactor was used to manufacture Einsteinium. It is among those few places in the world that are capable of making einsteinium.
2. The scientists worked with less than 250 nanograms of the artificial element which was manufactured here. 
3. The team of scientists had worked with einsteinium-254. It is one of the more stable isotopes of the element. It has a half-life of 276 days is known.
4. The scientists were able to examine this element using an accurate X-ray produced by a particle accelerator. They found out how it bonds with atoms.

Uses of Einsteinium:

As per the Chemical World podcast, “in part, the tiny quantities of Einsteinium that have been made reflect the difficulty of producing it. But it also receives the sad accolade of having no known uses. There really isn’t any reason for making einsteinium, except as a waypoint on the route to producing something else. It’s an element without a role in life.” This means that Einsteinium has found no such use in the medical or chemical industry so far. This is due to the small amount of the element present in the world. 

The use of the study:

Through this atomic arrangement, scientists can find out interesting chemical properties of other elements and isotopes. The elements which are useful for nuclear power production and radiopharmaceuticals can be studied using the study of Einsteinium. 

How was Einsteinium discovered:

An explosion was produced, when Ivy Mike was detonated on November 1, 1952. This was done as part of a test on a remote island named Elugelab on the Eniwetok Atoll in the South Pacific. 

The explosion that occurred was around 500 times more destructive than that at Nagasaki. The material obtained from the explosion was sent to Berkeley for analysis. It was examined by Gregory Choppin, Stanley Thompson, Albert Ghiorso, and Bernard Harvey. They had discovered and identified over 200 atoms of the new element.

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