{"id":230498,"date":"2026-02-04T05:25:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T11:25:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/neptunium-study-yields-plutonium-insights-for-space-exploration"},"modified":"2026-02-04T05:25:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T11:25:18","slug":"neptunium-study-yields-plutonium-insights-for-space-exploration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/neptunium-study-yields-plutonium-insights-for-space-exploration","title":{"rendered":"Neptunium study yields plutonium insights for space exploration"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/neptunium-study-yields-plutonium-insights-for-space-exploration.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Researchers at the Department of Energy\u2019s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are breathing new life into the scientific understanding of neptunium, a unique, radioactive, metallic element\u2014and a key precursor for production of the plutonium-238, or Pu-238, that fuels exploratory spacecraft.<\/p>\n<p>The ORNL team\u2019s research arrives during a period of increased national interest in the use of Pu-238 in radioisotope thermoelectric generators, or RTGs. Often used in space missions such as NASA\u2019s Perseverance Rover for long-term power, <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-03-radioisotope-generators-nuclear-batteries-power.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\" target=\"_blank\">RTGs<\/a> convert heat from radioactive decay into electricity. Advancing RTG knowledge and application possibilities also requires the same high-level evaluation of both chemical reactions and structural characterization, two key aspects of the materials science for which ORNL is known.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen people want to do scientific experiments in space, they need something to power their instruments, and plutonium is typically the power source because things like solar and lithium ion batteries don\u2019t withstand deep space,\u201d said Kathryn Lawson, radiochemist in ORNL\u2019s Fuel Cycle Chemical Technology Group and lead author of the new study.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers at the Department of Energy\u2019s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are breathing new life into the scientific understanding of neptunium, a unique, radioactive, metallic element\u2014and a key precursor for production of the plutonium-238, or Pu-238, that fuels exploratory spacecraft. The ORNL team\u2019s research arrives during a period of increased national interest in the use of [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,1497,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-230498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chemistry","category-energy","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230498\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}