What is the brief summary of the isolation of plutonium?
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taking plutonium away from the rest of the world
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An artifical transmutation occurs when an existing nucleus is bombarded with helium nuclei. This changes the number of neutrons and protons and thus creates a new element. This is how plutonium was created.
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ignoring radioactivity(which deals with unstable isotopes) the elements are indestructible and will last forever.\nthe law of conservation of matter says matter can never be created nor destroyed.( we can destroy matter in nuclear bombs but otherwise...).\nAs long as atoms exist, which is forever, the periodic table will tell you what to expect.
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http://www.seds.org/billa/tnp/pluto.html
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I GOT THIS FROM WIKIPEDIA\n\nPlutonium is a radioactive, metallic, chemical element. It has the symbol Pu and the atomic number 94. It is the element used in most modern nuclear weapons. The most important isotope of plutonium is 239Pu, with a half-life of 24,110 years. It can be made from natural uranium and is fissile. The most stable isotope is 244Pu, with a half-life of about 80 million years, long enough to be found in extremely small quantities in nature. Nuclear materials workers sometimes call it "plute".\n\nThe isotope 239Pu is a key fissile component in modern nuclear weapons, due to its ease of fissioning and availability. The critical mass for an unreflected sphere of plutonium is 16 kg, but through the use of a neutron reflecting tamper the pit of plutonium in a fission bomb is reduced to 10 kg, which is a sphere with a diameter of 10 cm. Complete detonation of plutonium will produce an explosion of 20 kilotons of trinitrotoluene (TNT) per kilogram. (See also nuclear weapon design.)\n\nPlutonium could also be used to manufacture radiological weapons or as a (not particularly deadly) poison.\n\nAll isotopes and compounds of plutonium are toxic and radioactive. While plutonium is sometimes described in media reports as "the most toxic substance known to man", there is general agreement among experts in the field that this is incorrect. As of 2006, there has yet to be a single human death officially attributed to exposure to plutonium itself (with the exception of plutonium-related criticality accidents). Naturally-occurring radium is about 200 times more radiotoxic than plutonium, and some organic toxins like Botulin toxin are still more toxic. Botulin toxin, in particular, has a lethal dose of 300pg/kg, far less than the quantity of plutonium that poses a significant cancer risk. In addition, beta and gamma emitters (including the C-14 and K-40 in nearly all food) can cause cancer on casual contact, which alpha emitters cannot.\n\nWhen taken in by mouth, plutonium is less poisonous (except for risk of causing cancer) than several common substances including caffeine, acetaminophen, some vitamins, pseudoephedrine, and any number of plants and fungi. It is perhaps somewhat more poisonous than pure ethanol, but less so than tobacco; and many illegal drugs (some such as marijuana are negligibly poisonous). From a purely chemical standpoint, it is about as poisonous as lead and other heavy metals. Not surprisingly, it has a metalic taste. [3]\n\nThat said, there is no doubt that plutonium may be extremely dangerous when handled incorrectly. The alpha radiation it emits does not penetrate the skin, but can irradiate internal organs when plutonium is inhaled or ingested. Particularly at risk are the skeleton, whose surface it is likely to be absorbed on, and the liver, where it will collect and become concentrated. Approximately 0.008 microcuries absorbed in bone marrow is the maximum withstandable dose. Anything more is considered toxic. Extremely fine particles of plutonium (on the order of micrograms) can cause lung cancer if inhaled.\n\nOther substances including ricin, botulinum toxin, and tetanus toxin are fatal in doses of (sometimes far) under one milligram, and others (the nerve agents, the amanita toxin, the fugu toxin) are in the range of a few milligrams. As such, plutonium is not unusual in terms of toxicity, even by inhalation. In addition, those substances are fatal in hours to days, whereas plutonium (and other cancer-causing radioactives) give an increased chance of illness decades in the future. Considerably larger amounts may cause acute radiation poisoning and death if ingested or inhaled; however, so far, no human is known to have immediately died because of inhaling or ingesting plutonium and many people have measurable amounts of plutonium in their bodies.\n\nIt must be noted, however, that in contrast to naturally occurring radioisotopes such as radium or C-14, plutonium was man
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The Arak facility might produced enough plutonium for as many as three bombs every year. Their projected date for this type of operation is at least 2yrs off.  The two Bushehr reactors appear to be geared toward electicity output\n\nPlutonium containing high quantities of fissile material i.e. Pu-239 in the order of 90-95 %, is known as weapon-grade plutonium. Plutonium containing lower concentrations, in the range of 50-60 % is known as reactor-grade plutonium.
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nuclear reactions operate by splitting heavy elements, most commonly plutonium 240 or uranium 235 producing pure energy and two elements with weights equal to almost 1/2 the origional element.
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A nuclear reactor contains uranium and a moderator, such as water or carbon (as graphite).  If struck by a neutron, U-235 is likely to fission, yielding fragments and two or three neutrons, which can, if you do things right, cause more fissions -- it's called a chain reaction.  Unfortunately, most uranium is U-238, which does not like to fission nearly as much as U-235 does -- but it does eat neutrons, becoming U-239 which decays to Np-239 and Pu-239.  The appetite of U-238 for neutrons is considerably reduced if the neutrons are slowed down before they have a chance to interact with it, and that is what a moderator does: it slows them down so that instead of traveling near the speed of light, they are traveling at about the speed of sound.  When the slow neutrons encounter a uranium fuel rod, they are more likely to be captured by U-235 to produce fission than by U-238, so the chain reaction can continue.  It is important that not all neutrons created by a fission are released immediately -- some are delayed, and that permits the reactor to be controlled by inserting rods of a neutron-absorptive material to keep the reaction from getting out of hand. \n In an atomic bomb, U-235 (or Pu-239) in nearly pure form is quickly assembled into a mass of such size that more neutrons cause fission than escape through the sides of the material, and so that delayed neutron release is overwhelmed by quick release, so a kilogram or more of uranium can fission before the device blows itself to pieces.
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The atomic number for plutonium is 94.  The weighted average value for the atomic mass of plutonium is 244.0642 grams/mole.
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Nuclear power is a 'clean' power in that, under normal circumstances, the only emisson is steam from the reactor. However, if there is a meltdown, like the one in Russia a while ago, the effect could be very threatning.
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Pu 239 is mostly manmade. It is highly toxic and its half-life is 24,000 years.\nExposure to the reaction of a critical mass is not so good either.
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Well, aside from the incredible wealth of supporting evidence as to the existence of an atom (that is what you are really asking, right?) there are a couple of great historic events that prove we can split an atom. Furthermore, while you cannot see a single atom, everything that you do see is an aggregation of atoms. But, back to how we know, in August of 1945, the second world war was ended by dropping two bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. You see, at it's simplest, an atom bomb's power is derived from the chain reaction that occurs from the splitting of the atom. Lord knows, no one has ever seen what happens when an atom is split. So, how do we know that we can split an atom? I mean, it's not like the threat of splitting an atom over a major population center didn't hold the world in a cold war for the better part of a century. Wow dude. I mean seriously, wow.
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OK.  There was a discrepancy in the atomic mass of elements.  We have electrons, which have insignificant mass, and an equal number of protons (to make the atom neutral), but the atomic mass exceeds the sum of the masses of the protons + electrons.  So we hypothesize that there is another particle in the atom which has atomic mass roughly the same as a proton but no charge.\nIt makes sense that this particle is in the nucleus.\nBUT, we can't use magnetic properties to isolate this particle.  And an atom is pretty much indivisible.  So we must actually strip off the electrons AND the protons to isolate neutrons.  That's not easy.
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The experts at NRDC estimate between 30-35 (2002 est.) with enough weapons-grade plutonium for 50-90 more nuclear weapons. \nThe website Armgeddon Online claims they have 70.
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Read please...\n\n"THE MAKING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB" by Richard Rhodes
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Fission (A-Bomb) & Fusion (H-Bomb) \nThere are two types of atomic explosions that can be facilitated by U-235: fission and fusion. Fission, simply put, is a nuclear reaction in which an atomic nucleus splits into fragments, usually two fragments of comparable mass, emitting 100 million to several hundred million volts of energy. This energy is expelled explosively and violently in the atomic bomb. A fusion reaction is usually started with a fission reaction, but unlike the fission (atomic) bomb, the fusion (hydrogen) bomb derives its power from the fusing of nuclei of various hydrogen isotopes into helium nuclei. This article discusses the A-bomb or atomic bomb.
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Your question is a very good one and everyone here is trying to help. Let me wade in with what I hope is a clear answer or two.\n\nCommercial reactors do not have the configuration to do what a nuclear bomb does: go promptly critical and thus have a large-scale supercritical nuclear explosion. Even Chernobyl (may the 40 or so people who died from it rest in peace) was mostly a steam explosion with a burning of the graphite core. The RBMK reactors like Chernobyl have mostly been shut down now - folks in the former Soviet Union may chime in now as to their status. \n\nModern commercial nuclear reactors (unlike the RBMK design) have large concrete domes called containments over them. The containment structures are designed to hold large amounts of pressure to guard against an accidental release of radiation. Even if the reactor core (part with the nuclear fuel) should become uncovered and thus lose its cooling, the containment will hold most of the radioactive material inside. That is precisely what happened at Three Mile Island. Most of the fuel and fission products were in the containment basement and plated out on the walls.\n\nThe most credible accidents are practiced for often at every power plant. Drills exercise the staff from the control room to the folks who go out into the field to survey for radiation. Those drills are graded not just by the plant, not just by the NRC, but by the county and state. \n\nNuclear reactors do not become nuclear bombs. If you were to take used fuel from nuclear reactors and chemically reprocess it - separating out the plutonium that is made in small amounts in the fuel - you could eventually make a bomb. We do not do reprocessing of commercial nuclear fuel in the US. There is a worry that some countries may do that. Of course, that is precisely what the military does do.\n\nMy job? I am a Health Physicist. I teach radiation protection, nuclear physics, and radiation chemistry. In the event of an accident, I read remote monitors and figure out what the pathway the radionuclides are taking out, how much, and what dose might be delivered to the population downwind. My predictions are used to advise the county about evacuation of persons living in a 20 mile radius of the power plant. I have a Bachelors of Science in biology from Baylor University, Masters in Applied Nuclear Science from Georgia Tech, and my PhD work was in leukemia research at Baylor Col. of Medicine. I was part of the Three Mile Island Recovery Team.