NAME:___________________________________ DATE:_______SECTION_____LAB_____
You Made Me Do It!
Background:
In artificial transmutations the nucleus is bombarded with high-energy (kinetics energy)
particles to induce transmutation. There are two reactants or the nucleus that is being bombarded
and the high-energy particle. This has been used to create new isotopes of known elements and
create new elements. All the elements after uranium have been artificially created.
Note: High-energy particles are accelerated in accelerators, by the application of electric and
magnetic fields. Neutrons cannot be accelerated in accelerators using electric and magnetic fields
because their charge is 0.
The first artificial transmutation was accomplished in 1919 by Rutherford who bombarded
nitrogen-14 with α particles.
14
N7 +
4
He2 
17
O8 +
1
H1
Later, in 1930, Irene Curie and her husband Frederic bombarded stable Al-27 with alpha
particles.
27
Al13 +
4
He2 
30
P15 +
1
n0
Thus, not only were the Curie-Joliots able to create new isotopes by artificial transmutation, it
turned out that their new isotopes were radioactive and therefore capable of decaying into still
other forms of matter. For their contribution to the field, the Curie-Joliots were awarded the
Nobel prize in chemistry in 1935.
Meanwhile, in Italy, in 1934, a research group led by Enrico Fermi was conducting its own series
of transmutation experiments. Their bullet of choice was the neutron because, with no positive
charge to be repelled by the target nucleus, the neutron could deliver maximum impact on the
target. The Fermi group was trying to make the first trasuranic element (elements above 92).
They created a nuclear reaction but it did not produce any elements above 92. But what Fermi’s
experiment did do…Was change the world as we know it…..Forever! (Stay Tuned)
In 1940, E.M. McMillan and P.H. Abelson, working at the University of California at Berkeley,
showed that a radioactive product of the bombardment of uranium with neutrons was an isotope
of element 93, the first transuranic element produced was named neptunium.
238
U92 +
1
n0 
239
Np93 +
0
e-1
Notice that the total mass of the reactants and the total mass of the products are the same. Also,
the total number of protons (atomic number) of the reactants and the total number of protons of
the products are the same.
Which law of chemistry does this illustrate?
Problems:
Based on that law determine the miss piece in each nuclear artificial transmutation.
1)
121
4
2)
238
3)
27
4)
27
5)
10
B5 +
1
6)
14
N7 +
1
7)
242
Sb51 +
He2  _____ +
U92 + 1H1  _____ +
Al13 + _____
30
P15 +
Al13 + _____ 
H1 
n0 
Cm96 +
4
4
24
1
0
1
H1
e -1
n0
Na11 +
4
He2
He2 + _____
_____ + 1H1
He2  _____ + 1 n 0
8)
16
9)
252
10)
238
O8 +
1
Cf98 +
U92 +
H1  _____ +
4
He2
B5  3 1 n 0 + _____
10
12
C6 
246
Cf98 + ___ ____
Questions:
1) Why is it so hard to get two nuclei to interact?
2) How do scientists over come this to do artificial transmutation?
3) Why can neutrons be accelerated in an electric field?
4) How are newly discovered elements named?
Reflection:
Describe how artificial transmutation is caused.
Describe how the artificial nuclear equation looks different than a natural decay equation.
Describe how you can determine the missing species in an equation.