Half the world’s supply of element 99 used to reveal its chemical secrets

Using less than 200 nanograms of einsteinium – half of the world’s supply at that time – scientists have uncovered the synthetic element’s bonding and spectroscopic behaviour for the first time.

Discovered in the debris after the detonation of the first hydrogen bomb in 1952, einsteinium is a highly radioactive actinide. As it doesn’t occur on Earth naturally, little is known about its chemistry beyond the fact that it forms a few halide and oxide salts. Making more than just trace amounts of it means bombarding lighter elements with neutrons for a prolonged period of time – a process that can only be done at one place in the world, the high flux isotope reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, US.