Harold G. Richter | |
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Born | Harold Gene Richter March 5, 1925 |
Died | July 19, 2001 76) [1] | (aged
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
Known for | Nuclear chemistry, Air and water quality measurement methods |
Spouse(s) | Marjorie Richter |
Scientific career | |
Institutions | Research Triangle Institute, United States Atomic Energy Commission, Environmental Protection Agency |
Doctoral advisor | Charles D. Coryell |
Harold Gene Richter (March 5, 1925 - July 19, 2001) was an American chemist noted for his development of new analytical techniques for determination of water and air quality. Much of his career was spent at the Research Triangle Institute in Durham, North Carolina. Richter conducted research involving radioisotopes for the United States Atomic Energy Commission. He was a project officer for the Environmental Protection Agency, specializing in techniques for monitoring water and air quality. Richter developed new methods of analysis and monitoring during his tenure with both agencies.
Post-2000 sources suggesting that Richter had a role in the discovery of the element promethium in 1945 may be inaccurate. Earlier records, including Richter's own curriculum vitae of 1966, make no mention of such a connection. [2]
Harold Gene Richter was born on March 5, 1925 in Fontanet, Indiana. [3] His parents were Leslie Earl Richter and Ola Rozella (Chandler) Richter.
After serving in World War II, Richter attended Franklin College in Franklin, Indiana. He earned his B.A. in 1947. [3]
During 1947–1948, Richter worked as a Junior physicist with Nathan Sugarman at Argonne National Laboratory, resulting in the publication of works on the natural radioactivity of rhenium and short‐lived fission products of iodine, rubidium and cesium. [2] [4] [5]
From 1948 to 1952, Richter attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), [2] completing his M.Sc. in 1950 and his Ph.D. in 1952, in the chemistry department. [6] Harold Richter studied with Charles D. Coryell at MIT, investigating nuclear chemistry. [2] He wrote his Ph.D. thesis on The Photofusion of Uranium (1952). [7] He published a scientific paper with Coryell on "Low-Energy Photofission Yields for U238" (1954). [8]
In 1952 Richter joined the faculty of the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, as an assistant professor of chemistry. [6]
In 1954–1955, Richter did classified work at the U. S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, [2] at the Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco, California. [9] From 1955 to 1959, Richter worked for the Nuclear Science and Engineering Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania [2] (later the International Chemical and Nuclear Corporation). At Nuclear Science and Engineering Corporation, he "developed new methods of radiochemical analysis and of low-level radioactivity techniques." [9]
In 1959 [2] Richter moved to the Isotope Development Laboratory of the Research Triangle Institute (RTI) in Durham, North Carolina, which was founded in 1958. Some of his work at RTI was carried out under contract to the Division of Isotopes Development of the United States Atomic Energy Commission. [10]
In 1964–1965, Richter received a Fulbright Award to conduct further scientific investigations at laboratories outside of the United States. [11] He was then in residence with the Section d’Application des Radioelements of the Centre d'Études Nucléaires in Grenoble, France. There he conducted radioisotope research and developed radio-release methods for tracing contaminants in stream flows. [12] [13]
Richter also served as a project officer for the Environmental Protection Agency of the United States. In the 1970s and 1980s, a major focus of his investigations was the development of techniques for analysis of water and air quality and subsequent use of the methods for investigation of water and air quality. [14]
Early in the 20th century, Czech chemist Bohuslav Brauner, and later English physicist Henry Mosely, predicted the existence of an element with atomic weight 61, situated between neodymium and samarium on the periodic table. Various scientists had attempted to isolate the predicted element without success since the time of Mosely's and Brauner's predictions. [15]
Working in 1945, Charles D. Coryell, Lawrence E. Glendenin and Jacob A. Marinsky carried out experiments on isolation of the missing element. These experiments were conducted at Clinton Laboratories in Oak Ridge, Tennessee (officially renamed Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 1947). They obtained element 61 by two means, including as a nuclear fission product of uranium and the neutron bombardment of neodymium, all conducted in graphite reactors. This element was subsequently named "promethium", an inherently unstable element in all of its isotopic forms. [15]
Richter is not mentioned in contemporary sources that discuss the 1945 work on promethium conducted by Coryell, Marinsky, and Glendenin at Clinton Laboratories. [16] [17] According to Richter's 1966 curriculum vitae (published in a government report), his connection to MIT dated to 1948, after the discovery was made. Richter's cv does not mention Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Coryell, or promethium. His description of his Ph.D. work reads: [2]
"1948-1952. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge,. Massachusetts. The Ph.D. degree required a detailed knowledge of radiochemical analytical techniques. At the same time, it afforded an opportunity to work with the high-energy accelerators then available at MIT (linear accelerator, synchrotron and cycloytron)." Harold Richter, 1966
Richter is listed as a co-discoverer of promethium in some post-2000 internet and print sources on the history of the elements and the discovery of promethium. [18] [19] [20] At least one of these sources has been criticized by reviewers for inaccuracies. [21] Encyclopædia Britannica notes that the existence of promethium was proved by Marinsky, Glendenin, and Coryell in 1945, but not publicly announced until 1947. [15] A photograph of Richter with Coryell, Glendenin and Marinsky, available on the internet, is undated and may reflect the period when Richter was a graduate student (1948-1952) rather than the 1945 discovery. [22]
Harold G. Richter lived in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with his wife Marjorie Richter. He died on July 19, 2001 [23] and is buried at Chapel Hill Memorial Cemetery. [1]
Library resources about Harold G. Richter |
By Harold G. Richter |
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Actinium is a chemical element with the symbol Ac and atomic number 89. It was first isolated by Friedrich Oskar Giesel in 1902, who gave it the name emanium; the element got its name by being wrongly identified with a substance André-Louis Debierne found in 1899 and called actinium. Actinium gave the name to the actinide series, a group of 15 similar elements between actinium and lawrencium in the periodic table. Together with polonium, radium, and radon, actinium was one of the first non-primordial radioactive elements to be isolated.
The discovery of the 118 chemical elements known to exist as of 2022 is presented in chronological order. The elements are listed generally in the order in which each was first defined as the pure element, as the exact date of discovery of most elements cannot be accurately determined. There are plans to synthesize more elements, and it is not known how many elements are possible.
Francium is a chemical element with the symbol Fr and atomic number 87. It is extremely radioactive; its most stable isotope, francium-223, has a half-life of only 22 minutes. It is the second-most electropositive element, behind only caesium, and is the second rarest naturally occurring element. The isotopes of francium decay quickly into astatine, radium, and radon. The electronic structure of a francium atom is [Rn] 7s1, and so the element is classed as an alkali metal.
Neptunium is a chemical element with the symbol Np and atomic number 93. A radioactive actinide metal, neptunium is the first transuranic element. Its position in the periodic table just after uranium, named after the planet Uranus, led to it being named after Neptune, the next planet beyond Uranus. A neptunium atom has 93 protons and 93 electrons, of which seven are valence electrons. Neptunium metal is silvery and tarnishes when exposed to air. The element occurs in three allotropic forms and it normally exhibits five oxidation states, ranging from +3 to +7. It is radioactive, poisonous, pyrophoric, and capable of accumulating in bones, which makes the handling of neptunium dangerous.
Promethium is a chemical element with the symbol Pm and atomic number 61. All of its isotopes are radioactive; it is extremely rare, with only about 500–600 grams naturally occurring in Earth's crust at any given time. Promethium is one of only two radioactive elements that are followed in the periodic table by elements with stable forms, the other being technetium. Chemically, promethium is a lanthanide. Promethium shows only one stable oxidation state of +3.
Technetium is a chemical element with the symbol Tc and atomic number 43. It is the lightest element whose isotopes are all radioactive. Nearly all available technetium is produced as a synthetic element. Naturally occurring technetium is a spontaneous fission product in uranium ore and thorium ore, the most common source, or the product of neutron capture in molybdenum ores. The silvery gray, crystalline transition metal lies between manganese and rhenium in group 7 of the periodic table, and its chemical properties are intermediate between those of both adjacent elements. The most common naturally occurring isotope is 99Tc, in traces only.
A radionuclide is a nuclide that has excess nuclear energy, making it unstable. This excess energy can be used in one of three ways: emitted from the nucleus as gamma radiation; transferred to one of its electrons to release it as a conversion electron; or used to create and emit a new particle from the nucleus. During those processes, the radionuclide is said to undergo radioactive decay. These emissions are considered ionizing radiation because they are powerful enough to liberate an electron from another atom. The radioactive decay can produce a stable nuclide or will sometimes produce a new unstable radionuclide which may undergo further decay. Radioactive decay is a random process at the level of single atoms: it is impossible to predict when one particular atom will decay. However, for a collection of atoms of a single nuclide the decay rate, and thus the half-life (t1/2) for that collection, can be calculated from their measured decay constants. The range of the half-lives of radioactive atoms has no known limits and spans a time range of over 55 orders of magnitude.
Edwin Mattison McMillan was an American physicist and Nobel laureate credited with being the first-ever to produce a transuranium element, neptunium. For this, he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Glenn Seaborg in 1951.
In nuclear science, the decay chain refers to a series of radioactive decays of different radioactive decay products as a sequential series of transformations. It is also known as a "radioactive cascade". Most radioisotopes do not decay directly to a stable state, but rather undergo a series of decays until eventually a stable isotope is reached.
Nuclear chemistry is the sub-field of chemistry dealing with radioactivity, nuclear processes, and transformations in the nuclei of atoms, such as nuclear transmutation and nuclear properties.
Willard Frank Libby was an American physical chemist noted for his role in the 1949 development of radiocarbon dating, a process which revolutionized archaeology and palaeontology. For his contributions to the team that developed this process, Libby was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1960.
Jacob Akiba Marinsky was a chemist who was the co-discoverer of the element promethium.
Lead (82Pb) has four stable isotopes: 204Pb, 206Pb, 207Pb, 208Pb. Lead-204 is entirely a primordial nuclide and is not a radiogenic nuclide. The three isotopes lead-206, lead-207, and lead-208 represent the ends of three decay chains: the uranium series, the actinium series, and the thorium series, respectively; a fourth decay chain, the neptunium series, terminates with the thallium isotope 205Tl. The three series terminating in lead represent the decay chain products of long-lived primordial 238U, 235U, and 232Th, respectively. However, each of them also occurs, to some extent, as primordial isotopes that were made in supernovae, rather than radiogenically as daughter products. The fixed ratio of lead-204 to the primordial amounts of the other lead isotopes may be used as the baseline to estimate the extra amounts of radiogenic lead present in rocks as a result of decay from uranium and thorium..
Promethium (61Pm) is an artificial element, except in trace quantities as a product of spontaneous fission of 238U and 235U and alpha decay of 151Eu, and thus a standard atomic weight cannot be given. Like all artificial elements, it has no stable isotopes. It was first synthesized in 1945.
Technetium (43Tc) is the first of the two elements lighter than bismuth that have no stable isotopes; the other such element is promethium. It is primarily artificial, with only trace quantities existing in nature produced by spontaneous fission or neutron capture by molybdenum. The first isotopes to be synthesized were 97Tc and 99Tc in 1936, the first artificial element to be produced. The most stable radioisotopes are 97Tc, 98Tc, and 99Tc.
Neptunium (93Np) is usually considered an artificial element, although trace quantities are found in nature, so a standard atomic weight cannot be given. Like all trace or artificial elements, it has no stable isotopes. The first isotope to be synthesized and identified was 239Np in 1940, produced by bombarding 238U with neutrons to produce 239U, which then underwent beta decay to 239Np.
Isotopes are two or more types of atoms that have the same atomic number and position in the periodic table, and that differ in nucleon numbers due to different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei. While all isotopes of a given element have almost the same chemical properties, they have different atomic masses and physical properties.
Lawrence Elgin Glendenin was an American chemist who co-discovered the element promethium.
Charles DuBois Coryell was an American chemist who was one of the discoverers of the element promethium.
Nuclear fission was discovered in December 1938 by chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann and physicists Lise Meitner and Otto Robert Frisch. Fission is a nuclear reaction or radioactive decay process in which the nucleus of an atom splits into two or more smaller, lighter nuclei and often other particles. The fission process often produces gamma rays and releases a very large amount of energy, even by the energetic standards of radioactive decay. Scientists already knew about alpha decay and beta decay, but fission assumed great importance because the discovery that a nuclear chain reaction was possible led to the development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons.
In an earlier edition we noted the passing of Harold Gene Richter, SM on July 19, 2001 ... Born in Fontanet, IN, Harold served in World War II for two years before returning to Franklin College on Franklin, IN to obtain a BA in 1947. He worked in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Oregon for several years, before working in San Francisco at the Office of Naval Research at Hunters Point. His career lead him to the Research Triangle Institute in North Carolina, then later to CERN in Grenoble where he worked on radio isotopic research. He is survived by his wife, Marjorie; daughter, Melanie; sons Jeff, Kyle, and Tad, as well as five grandchildren.
Each of the reviewers is a member of the technical staff of the Research Triangle Institute, Durham, North Carolina ... Harold Richter was at the US Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory and at Nuclear Science and Engineering Corporation where he developed new methods of radiochemical analysis and of low-level radioactivity techniques.
RECEIVED for review April 15, 1965. Accepted May 24, 1965. Part of the work was carried out at the Research Triangle Institute, Durham, N. C., under U. S. Atomic Energy Commission, Division of Isotopes Developments Contract No. AT-(40-1)-2513. The remainder of the work was performed at le Centre d’Etudes Nucleaires de Grenoble, in the Section d’Application des Radioelements, where one of us (H. G. R.) was given the freedom to pursue the study, and records here his appreciation of the cooperation from that group. H. G. Richter also expresses his appreciation for a 1964-65 Fulbright Grant.
Appendix 2 it was isolated in 1945 by the team of Charles D. Coryell, Jacob (Jack) A. Marinsky, Lawrence E. Glendenin, and Harold G. Richter. They identified promethium as one of the by-products of uranium fission
Two other classmates not listed in the Reunion Book who have passed away are Dr. Harold G. Richter on July 19. 2001 ... Harold's address is 8601 Little Creek Farm Road Chapel Hill, NC 27516 where he lived with his wife Marjorie Richter. He received both his MS and PhD from Course 5.