How is transuranic elements produced in a particle accelerator?
A partical accelerator is a great big structure, used for accelerating particles up to extremely high speeds. They use electromagnetic forces to accelerate charged particles, such as protons, electrons, positrons, ions, etc. What is done, a perticle is accelerated, and aimed at a ready exsisting atom. The particles are accelerated to such a high speed, that when they collide with the atom, they fuse with it, and become part of it. It is possible to “build” new elements this way. Unfortunately,elements larger than uranium become rather unstable. Elements such as ununhexium, 116, have VERY small half lives. Ununhexium has a half life of something like 47 milliseconds, so they only ever exsist for a fraction of a second. shame really….
