Meet the Chemiballs; the Active Actinides

I’ve already made an article on all the interesting series of chemiballs. The Actinides contain a few elements that are very interesting and important. But also a whole lot of very obscure and boring elements. The Actinides are famous for being very radioactive and generally not safe to be around. 

They are one of the two rows awkwardly separated underneath the periodic table, the other being the Lanthanides. Both of these make up the f orbital block (which is to say their valence electrons orbit in a very strange shape). The f block technically should be placed between the transition metals and alkali earth metals. But isn’t because that would make the table far too long to fit on the walls of chemistry classrooms.

• Table of Contents:
• Actinium
• Protactinium
• Uranium
• Thorium
• Neptunium
• Plutonium
• Americium
• Addendum
• Comments

Actiniumball; the Actinidest Actinide

The name “actinides” means “actinium-Like” because they have chemical properties similar to their first member Actiniumball. 

Actually, “actinide” technically would mean “actinium negative ion”. The more correct name is “actinoid” according to the IUPAC, which is the organization dedicated to making chemistry terminology standardized and make sense. Unfortunately, most chemists either ignore them or use the IUPAC and outdated alchemy terms interchangeably which completely defeats the point of standardization. Anyways, the actinoids are almost always referred to as actinides, and I need to optimize for search engines, so I’m calling them that too.

One might argue that Actinium logically shouldn’t be an actinide as that’s a tautology. It goes without saying that actinium is similar to actinium, it’s actinium. But it’s still an actinide because, shockingly, ease of usage is more important than grammar pedantry. 

Even for people who still call light petroleum “petroleum ether” which, I shit you not, is named an ether metaphorically. Petroleum ether is not an ether, it’s an oil fraction whose volatility is similar to ethers.

Actinium is one of the few radioactive elements that actually glows like in the cartoons. It can ionize the air around it creating a glowing pale blue silhouette. This is called Cherenkov radiation. This is where it got its name. “Actin” is Greek for “light beam”.

Protactinium; the Least Interesting Actinide

As you might guess from the name, proto-actinium decays into actinium. This is the equivalent of naming neptunium “protoprotactinium”. I would be annoyed that its discoverers gave it such an uninspired name if the element itself wasn’t so uninspiring. 

There are only two things that are interesting about protactinium; that previous fact, and just how few things are interesting about protactinium. It’s rare, has no unique or useful properties, and its radioactivity makes it ill-suited even as a paperweight. 

Uranium; Insert Ur Anus Joke

In my Post Transition Metals post, I said that Leadball and Bismuthball are the heaviest stable elements and everything after them is radioactive and decays. Well, there’s another level of stability above that. Uraniumball is the heaviest element that’s just radioactive but not fissile. 

Really, really big atoms that come after uranium on the table, like Oganessonball, just don’t want to exist and will fall apart almost instantly. They are fissile, which among other things, means they decay so quickly and energetically that they can be used to power nuclear reactors. The only issue is that almost all of the fissile elements left over in the stardust earthball were made from have already decayed away.

The only remaining natural fissile material is an isotope of uranium, uranium-235. Most uranium is uranium-238, which while radioactive, isn’t fissile. So you need to purify uranium so you only have the fissile isotope left for it to be useful. Material that is mostly pure U-235 is called enriched uranium, while the leftover pure U-238 is called depleted uranium.

I’ve drawn Uranium-235 l as a rectangle as a reference to Countryballs’ Reichtangle since I imagine U-238 and U-235 to have a similar dynamic that Germanyball has with their violent alter ego. I dub him “Enrichedtangle”.

Use (besides Reactors)

Historically, uranium has been widely used. Uranium is relatively abundant on earth for the same reason Lead is, much of the heaviest trans-uranic elements have since decayed into uranium. It also has a lot of useful and unique properties thanks to its density and weird seesaw-shaped bond structure. 

Before the discovery of radiation and also for a while after it, uraniumballs were used to make glassware and pottery for their rich color and ability to glow in the dark. There might still be some in your grandma’s china cabinet. Unfortunately, most people don’t want to buy those anymore (I can’t imagine why). Since the uranium is contained inside of the glaze/glass, they’re safe to eat out of as long as you don’t scratch them and release uranium dust into your food. 

But people are fine with eating off Teflon pans. Those are also only safe so long as you don’t scratch them releasing highly carcinogenic Teflon into your food. But Teflon doesn’t even glow in the dark. Seems like a bit of a double standard to me.

Military Use (besides nukes)

These days, depleted uranium-238 is infamously used by the militaries of nuclear powers (such as Russia, the U.S, and the U.K.) to make armor-piercing shells for tanks and attack aircraft. 

Historically, anti-tank armor-piercing ammo was made from Tungstencube because it’s harder than steel and is very dense which gives it more momentum. Uraniumball has about the same density and can be even harder than Tungstencube. 

But unlike tungsten, which mushrooms out and gets duller as it cuts through armor, depleted uranium actually gets even sharper. Uranium metal has a molecular structure that you can imagine as being like a bunch of sheets of corrugated metal stacked on top of each other, rather than just one big piece of continuous metal like tungsten. So when a uranium armor penetrator is going through steel the top layers of uranium just ablate off instead of deforming.

Uranium is also lightly pyrophoric meaning it can sometimes burst into flames on contact with air. So after a uranium penetrator penetrates a tank, all the uranium fragments it sprays inside will also be on fire. 

Of course, y’know, there are probably some ethical issues about shooting bits of uranium at people. It’s not so radioactive that it’s dangerous for the soldiers who are using it, as long as they don’t sleep while spooning it with their bare skin (however tempting that may be). But if you miss and hit the hill behind the tank you’re shooting at, that hill is now full of Uraniumballs. By extension, any crops that are grown on that hill in the next several thousand years or so will also be full of Uraniumballs. So will anyone who eats those crops.

The United States also puts depleted uranium in the armor of their main battle tanks. It makes the armor stronger and more compact, and keeps the interior of the tank nice and warm in the winter. (I don’t know if that’s actually true).

Thoriumball; the Nicest Actinide

Thorium is cheaper to get than uranium. Despite not being fissile, as it is lighter and comes before uranium on the periodic table, thorium can be used to power nuclear reactors. 

If you continuously shoot thoriumballs with neutrons they will transmute into Uranium-232 and Uranium-233. Uranium-232 is fissile and can power the nuclear reactor, but it also decays about as quickly as it’s made and get stuffed up by the uranium-233, meaning you can’t use thorium to make a nuclear bomb. This is good for putting nuclear reactors in areas you might not want falling into the hands of the kind of people who shouldn’t be able to make nukes.

Thoriumball is the only element lucky enough to have a whole Sam O’Nella video devoted to it. That video is my main source on Thorium knowledge, by the way. 

Neptunium; the Recyclable Actinide

Despite being transuranic, Neptuniumball isn’t as good for making nukes or reactors as Plutoniumball or Enrichedtangle. Luckily though, it can also be transmuted into plutonium. 

There isn’t enough Uranium-235 to make into Enrichedtangles to satisfy the need for nuclear reactors and nukes. Luckily though, plutonium works just as well if not better for those, but none exists naturally. 

But you can just take some of the depleted Uranium-238 you’re left with after enrichment or some Neptunium from nuclear waste then chuck that into a particle accelerator or a research reactor and pump their atoms full of neutrons. This converts them into very heavy isotopes of uranium or neptunium that don’t want to exist. Some of the extra neutrons decay into protons and electrons through beta decay. What you’re left with is some isotope of plutonium, all of which are fissile.

Safety

When I said that Neptunium isn’t as good as U-235 or plutonium, I don’t mean that it isn’t as fissile. It is. You can make bombs and reactors using it. But the only source of neptunium is by extracting it from nuclear waste. It’s a lot harder to get enough of it to produce rods or cores of pure neptunium. Using it to supplement the supply of plutonium is just more efficient. 

It’s also worth doing because removing the neptunium from nuclear waste makes it a lot safer. You’ve still got radioactive waste, but at least it doesn’t have that comically dangerous element in it.

Neptunium is one of the most dangerous elements to exist. It can kill you in literally every way possible for a chemical. It’s highly radioactive, fissile, toxic, pyrophoric, and even accumulates in bones like lead. 

Plutonium; the Fat Man Actinide

Plutonium was either named after a cartoon dog or the dwarf planet Pluto (and no it’s not a planet, shut up). That would make more sense as Uranium and Neptunium are named after the planets UrAnus and Neptune.

Plutonium is fissile. In fact, it’s even more fissile than Uranium-235, which is why there isn’t any primordial plutonium around anymore. It’s very radioactive. It’s also pyrophoric, more so than Uranium, meaning that it might burst into flames on contact with the air. Fun.

Americiumball; the FREEDOM-est Actinide

Americium, as you might have guessed, is named after America. Specifically, THE UNITED FUCKING STATES OF AMERICA Everyone else in North and South America can imagine it’s named after their continent as well. 

‘Murica got the right to name an element after itself by showing those fucking atoms whose boss. Sure, there are other country elements like Francium, Germanium, Polonium, etc. But did France, Germany, Poland, etc, literally *create* that element by setting off a bomb with the power of a sun that they genuinely thought might ignite the atmosphere and end the fucking world? Then continued to potentially end the world up into the current day? All just so they could make the Japanese invent hentai? Yeah, I didn’t think so. 

Production

As previously mentioned, the traditional method of making ‘Muriciumballs is by waiting for someone to set off a nuclear bomb. Then you mop up the radioactive ash and do chemistry on it to separate out the fun elements. Personal protective equipment was minimalistic if present at all.

Unlike you snowflakes, with your participation trophies and lack of bone cancer, back in the good old days people didn’t see anything wrong with that. It puts some hair on your chest, and other places too.

Use

Americium does get some use in smoke detectors of all things. But luckily each smoke detector uses such a tiny amount that we’ve been able to use what was left over from the cold war without exploding any more nukes.

Now, I’m not saying that America should start nuclear testing again after we run out of Americium. But I am saying that *I* will do that. Smoke detector business is good money.

I’ve drawn Americiumball wearing sunglasses, which is also a reference to countryballs where Americaball is always drawn wearing sunglasses for some reason. Probably to protect their eyes from the blinding light of their freedom. *eagle screeches in the distance*. Also from the nuclear blasts. 

Addendum:

Curium is pretty much the last element that is stable enough to be at least somewhat usable. Everything after it has a half-life of days, hours, or even milliseconds. Like Americium, Curium has historically been made in nuclear explosions powerful enough to fuse heavy elements together like the heart of a dying star. It’s named after famed radiologist Marie Curie.

There are more actinideballs past Curium, but there’s not much to say about them as they decay so quickly that they can have no chemical application.

Besides being highly unstable, their chemical properties are closer to the lanthanides than actinium or uranium. Oddly enough, it’s not that anyone really needs to know that since it’s impossible to do any practical chemistry with them.

I drew all these. As I am a firm believer in freedom of info on the internet, I give anyone permission to do whatever they want with them. Copy, repost, modify, etc, I don’t care.

For more Chemiball stuff, check out r/Chemiballs. This is a shockingly obscure community and deserves more attention.