Why is weapons grade plutonium more hazardous to work with than highly enriched uranium?

Abstract

Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) and Weapons grade plutonium (WG Pu) have assumed positions of dominant importance among the actinide elements because of their successful uses as explosive ingredients in nuclear weapons and the place they hold as key materials in the development of industrial use of nuclear power. While most chemists are familiar with the practical interest concerning HEU and WG Pu, fewer know the subtleties among their hazards. In this study, a primer is provided regarding the hazards associated with working with HEU and WG Pu metals and oxides. The care that must be taken to safely handle these materials is emphasized and the extent of the hazards is described. The controls needed to work with HEU and WG Pu metals and oxides are differentiated. Given the choice, one would rather work with HEU metal and oxides than WG Pu metal and oxides.

New sample stage for characterizing radioactive materials by X-ray powder diffraction: application on five actinide dioxides ThO2, UO2, NpO2, PuO2 and AmO2

“…and the technique is widely used on actinide-bearing materials (Gardner et al, 1965;Sari et al, 1970;Turcotte et al, 1980;Haire et al, 1984;Hecker et al, 2004;Belin et al, 2013;Prieur et al, 2014;Wheeler et al, 2015;Bykov et al, 2015;Vauchy, Belin, Richaud et al, 2016;Lalire et al, 2017;Ravat et al, 2019). However, handling radiotoxic materials is challenging as any exposure of workers to contamination and/ or irradiation can have dramatic health consequences (Cournoyer et al, 2015;Kim et al, 2016;Tang & Loganovsky, 2018). Internal and/or external contamination is the main radiologic risk in facilities where emitters are processed; thus, to prevent contamination, these radiotoxic materials are generally handled in hermetic glove-boxes.…”