Plutonium hydride is a
non-stoichiometric chemical compound with the formula PuH
2+x. It is one of two characterised hydrides of plutonium, the other is PuH
3.
[Gerd Meyer, 1991, Synthesis of Lanthanide and Actinide Compounds Springer, .] PuH
2 is
non-stoichiometric
In chemistry, non-stoichiometric compounds are chemical compounds, almost always solid inorganic compounds, having elemental composition whose proportions cannot be represented by a ratio of small natural numbers (i.e. an empirical formula); mos ...
with a composition range of PuH
2 – PuH
2.7. Additionally metastable stoichiometries with an excess of hydrogen (PuH
2.7 – PuH
3) can be formed.
PuH
2 has a cubic structure. It is readily formed from the elements at 1 atmosphere at 100–200 °C:
When the stoichiometry is close to PuH
2 it has a silver appearance, but gets blacker as the hydrogen content increases, additionally the color change is associated with a reduction in conductivity.
:Pu + H
2 → PuH
2
Studies of the reaction of plutonium metal with moist air at 200–350 °C showed the presence of cubic plutonium hydride on the surface along with Pu
2O
3,
PuO2 and a higher oxide identified by X-ray diffraction and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy as the mixed-valence phase Pu
IV3−xPu
VIxO
6+x. Investigation of the reaction performed without heating suggests that the reaction of Pu metal and moist air the production of PuO
2 and a higher oxide along with adsorbed hydrogen, which catalytically combines with O
2 to form water.
Plutonium dihydride on the surface of hydrided plutonium acts as a catalyst for the oxidation of the metal with consumption of both O
2 and N
2 from air.
[John M. Haschke Thomas H. Allen: Plutonium Hydride, Sesquioxide and Monoxide Monohydride: Pyrophoricity and Catalysis of Plutonium Corrosion, Journal of Alloys and Compounds, 320, 1, 2001, 58–71, .]
See also
*
Uranium hydride bomb The uranium hydride bomb was a variant design of the atomic bomb first suggested by Robert Oppenheimer in 1939 and advocated and tested by Edward Teller. It used deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen, as a neutron moderator in a uranium-deuterium cera ...
References
Plutonium compounds
Metal hydrides
Non-stoichiometric compounds
{{Inorganic-compound-stub