Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A silvery, metallic, naturally radioactive element, atomic number 93, the first of the transuranium elements. Its longest-lived isotope is Np-237 with a half-life of 2.1 million years. Found in trace quantities in uranium ores, it is produced synthetically by nuclear reactions. See Table at element.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In chem., a supposed new element announced by Hermann in 1877 as present in columbite and ferro-ilmenite. Its existence has not been confirmed.
Wiktionary
- n. The transuranic chemical element with atomic number 93 and symbol Np.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A radioactive metallic element of atomic number 93, produced in nuclear reactors from Plutonium or Uranium. Symbol Np; The atomic weight of the most stable isotope is 237.0482.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a radioactive transuranic metallic element; found in trace amounts in uranium ores; a by-product of the production of plutonium
Etymologies
- After Neptune (the planet). (Wiktionary)
- After the planet Neptune (from the fact that it follows uranium in the periodic table). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“In this way there was discovered an entirely new radioactive series which, from its most long-lived member, is now called the neptunium family.”
“There are no easy intermediate stages, like the neptunium which is a stage between uranium and plutonium.”
“Scientists have been creating new elements since 1940, when neptunium and plutonium were first forged at the University of California, Berkeley.”
The Wall Street Journal: Party of Two Is Seated at the Periodic Table
“Between those planets sits Neptune, and the gap between the two elements leaves a space for their relatively unsung cousin, neptunium – element number 93 in the periodic table.”
“And Ireta, a satellite of a suspected third generation sun, ought to be rich in the heavier elements, rich in the neptunium, plutonium and the more esoteric of the rare transuranics and actinites above uranium on the periodic table, so urgently and constantly required by the Federation of Sentient Populations the search for which was one of the primary tasks of the EEC.”
“Although all of these goals were demonstrated, the program was aborted before recycling of neptunium and americium was properly evaluated.”
“General Atomics say that the MHR has a neutron spectrum is such and the TRISO fuel so stable that the reactor can be powered fully with separated transuranic wastes (neptunium, plutonium, americium and curium) from light water reactor used fuel.”
“More recently, there has been interest in transmuting the long-lived transuranic radionuclides (the actinides neptunium, americium and curium particularly) formed by neutron capture in a conventional reactor and reporting with the high-level waste.”
“Fast reactors are able to unlock energy in waste because they can burn plutonium, neptunium and other materials that Generation II and Generation III reactors leave behind.”
“This description is consistent with the claim that it is essential to neptunium that nuclei of neptunium atoms have 93 protons whereas it is essential to plutonium that its nuclei have 94 protons.”
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oroboros Np. Dec 15, 2007