where do you get plutonium?

Answer 1

You may be able to get some used fuel rods from a nuclear power station.

Expect to have to answer an awful lot of questions about why you want it before your purchase is authorised.

Answer 2

"Plutonium is one of the most highly regulated substances in the world. So far as I am aware, there are no permitted industrial applications other than nuclear bombs and nuclear power reactors. Unlike, for example, americium, another man-made transuranic element, you cannot buy plutonium at Walmart. (There used to be plutonium-based batteries for pacemakers (see sample below). These are not used anymore, but it is reported that some patients still have working ones implanted.)

There are several reasons for its highly regulated status. First, plutonium is widely viewed as almost unimaginably dangerous. It is in fact quite dangerous, because it is powerfully radioactive, and because it is bone-seeking, which means once you get any in you it attaches itself permanently to your bones, where it sits around casually irradiating the bone marrow that is responsible for producing your blood cells.
But it's not quite as dangerous as many people seem to think. This article provides some perspective (though, for additional perspective, keep in mind that the article was published by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, the world's largest nuclear weapons research facility, which has a consistently pro-plutonium mind set).

Second there is the problem of criticality: If too much plutonium gets together in a compact form, a spontaneous chain reaction begins which results in a huge increase in the amount of radiation released, and if you have enough, a nuclear explosion. This has happened accidentally in storage pools in Russia, and in weapons labs in the US on at least two occasions. It takes a surprisingly small amount of it to reach dangerous rates of fission. (The critical mass in sphere form is 16kg, but much less than that will still start heating up.)

Third there is the hyper-concern on the part of regulatory agencies that someone could gather enough plutonium to make a nuclear bomb or at least a "dirty bomb". People gathering up normal uranium are not much of a concern, because it's so incredibly difficult to enrich it to the point of being useful for making bombs. But plutonium doesn't need any enriching: It's ready to go right out of the discreet yet strangely heavy attache case passed through an unmarked doorway in a back alley of a forlorn city in Kyrgyzstan."
- http://theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/Elements/094/

Answer 3

Plutonium was first produced and isolated on February 23, 1941 by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg, Dr. Michael Cefola, Edwin M. McMillan, J. W. Kennedy, and A. C. Wahl by deuteron bombardment of uranium in the 60-inch cyclotron at Berkeley.

Answer 4

Plutonium is found naturally in uranium ore. You can buy some at United Nuclear.

Answer 5

While almost all plutonium is manufactured synthetically, extremely tiny trace amounts are found naturally in uranium ores. These come about by a process of neutron capture by 238U nuclei, initially forming 239U; two subsequent beta decays then form 239Pu (with a 239Np intermediary), which has a half-life of 24,110 years. This is also the process used to manufacture 239Pu in nuclear reactors. Some traces of 244Pu remain from the birth of the solar system from waste of supernovae, because its half-life (80 million yrs) is fairly long.

A relatively high concentration of plutonium was discovered at the natural nuclear fission reactor in Oklo, Gabon in 1972. Since 1945, approximately 7700kg has been released onto Earth through nuclear explosions.


[edit] Manufacture

[edit] Pu-239
Main article: Plutonium 239
Plutonium-239 is one of the three fissile materials used for the production of nuclear weapons and in some nuclear reactors as a source of energy. The other fissile materials are uranium-235 and uranium-233. Plutonium-239 is virtually nonexistent in nature. It is made by bombarding uranium-238 with neutrons in a nuclear reactor. Uranium-238 is present in quantity in most reactor fuel; hence plutonium-239 is continuously made in these reactors. Since plutonium-239 can itself be split by neutrons to release energy, plutonium-239 provides a portion of the energy generation in a nuclear reactor.

A ring of weapons-grade electrorefined plutonium, with 99.96% purity. This 5.3 kg ring is enough plutonium for use in a modern nuclear weapon.
[edit] Pu-238
Main article: Plutonium-238
There are small amounts of Pu-238 in the plutonium of usual plutonium-producing reactors. However, isotopic separation would be quite expensive compared to another method: when a U-235 atom captures a neutron, it is converted to an excited state of U-236. Some of the excited U-236 nuclei undergo fission, but some decay to the ground state of U-236 by emitting gamma radiation. Further neutron capture creates U-237 which has a half-life of 7 days and thus quickly decays to Np-237. Since nearly all neptunium is produced in this way or consists of isotopes which decay quickly, one gets nearly pure Np-237 by chemical separation of neptunium. After this chemical separation, Np-237 is again irradiated by reactor neutrons to be converted to Np-238 which decays to Pu-238 with a half-life of 2 days.

Answer 6

BEST ADVICE'
Keep you hands of it.
Plutonium is found in ores under the earth. After it has been taken out/extracted you make it radioactive in many process's

Answer 7

Okay obtaining dangerous elements, NOT good!