Groundwater and Uranium: Chemical Behavior and Treatment

Abstract

The element uranium, symbol U, is a chemically reactive radioactive metallic element. It is the main fuel used in nuclear reactors. Uranium has atomic number 92, which places it in the actinide series of the periodic table. The German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth discovered uranium in 1789 in pitchblende. He named it after the planet Uranus. Uranium was first isolated in the metallic state in 1841and the radioactive properties were first demonstrated in 1896 by the French physicist Antoine Henri Becquerel (1).