Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to G L Silver.
Two plutonium work integrals have been demonstrated in recent years. One of them applies to the work of disproportionation and the other to the work of oxidation of plutonium from the trivalent to a higher oxidation state. This paper illustrates the connection of the integrals by an example and a diagram.
Plutonium oxidation-state studies may yield ambiguous results if the parameters are not carefully chosen. The effect can be related to environmental plutonium as illustrated by an example.
The relation of two plutonium work integrals has recently been illustrated. One of the integrals applies to the work of disproportionation of tetravalent plutonium in 1 M acid and the other to the work of oxidation of plutonium from the trivalent to a higher oxidation state. This paper generalizes the disproportionation work integral so that it can be applied to tetravalent plutonium at any acid concentration. An equation is provided that can be used to verify work estimations obtained by integration. It applies to oxidation and disproportionation processes and it is easy to use.
Disproportionation reactions in plutonium solutions alter the solution acidity. The acidity after reaction is related to the changes in the concentrations of the plutonyl cations. The final acidity can be estimated by a BASIC language program or by the method of proportional equations. The method is used to illustrate balanced equations for disproportionation reactions.
Studies of the oxidation-state distribution of plutonium in the ocean illustrate the need to characterize seawater by means of the pH, the E(H), and quanititative complexation parameters. The parameters are combined in an easy-to-use equation that determines the fractions of the four oxidation states. Similar analyses have been applied to plutonium in other solutions, and the same methods can be applied to seawater. An appendix shows how to estimate and interpret the alpha coefficient for tetravalent plutonium using published information for tetravalent thorium.