What is Thorium?

Thorium is an ore that can be used for nuclear power plants. It’s better for the environment, and only produces 0.6% of greenhouse gasses found in uranium. The only downside of thorium is that we don’t have the funding or the technology for making new power plants that use thorium, instead of uranium.There’s a lot more Thorium than Uranium so if scientists start using Thorium instead of Uranium, it will take less effort and supplies to extract Thorium. Thorium is named after the god of thunder Thor. Thorium is an element that is abundant on the earth, so we have lots of this element which can sustain us longer than Uranium can.

How was Thorium discovered?

Thorium was discovered in 1828 in Sweden by Jön Jacob Berzelius. Berzelius was given an ore by a Reverend Hans Morten Thrane Esmark who thought that there could possibly be another element in the ore, but he wasn’t a scientist and he didn’t have the appropriate equipment for executing experiments. Esmarks element is now know as Thorite. Thorium is 0.0007% of the earths crust. After further experiments, Berzelius discovered that Thorium was in minerals, the minerals were 60% Thorium, the mineral was later named Thorite.

What does Thorium do?

Thorium can be used as an alloying agent to improve the strength of Magnesium under heat. Thorium can also be used to cover tungsten filaments which are found in light bulbs and television sets. Thorium can also be used for nuclear power plants, when scientists embed neutrons into Thorium, the element goes through a series of “beta decays” and slowly it transforms into Uranium. Scientists need Thorium because it can be experimented on and it can help the environment with getting rid of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels cause green house gases and pollute the environment and the atmosphere, if the gases get worse, they can puncture a hole through the atmosphere. When there’s a hole in the atmosphere, the gravitational pull of the earth would pull in lots of hydrogen and helium, but in space there’s only particles that are breathable. If there was a hole in the atmosphere, it will suffocate all life.

Periodic Table Facts:

• Abbreviation: Th.
• Atomic number: 90
• Melting point: 1750 *C
• Boiling point: 4788 *C
• Group name: Anticides
• Pronunciation: THOR-ee-em
• 

Bibliography:

• “It’s Elemental.” It’s Elemental – The Element Thorium, https://education.jlab.org/itselemental/ele090.html.
• “Facts About Thorium.” LiveScience, Purch, https://www.livescience.com/39686-facts-about-thorium.html.
• Schulz, Wallace W. “Thorium Processing.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/technology/thorium-processing.
• “Landscape Photography of Factory · Free Stock Photo.” Free Stock Photos, https://www.pexels.com/photo/air-air-pollution-chimney-clouds-459728/.
• “Five Bulb Lights · Free Stock Photo.” Free Stock Photos, https://www.pexels.com/photo/five-bulb-lights-1036936/.
• “Earth Illustration · Free Stock Photo.” Free Stock Photos, https://www.pexels.com/photo/sky-earth-galaxy-universe-2422/.
• “Laboratory Test Tubes · Free Stock Photo.” Free Stock Photos, https://www.pexels.com/photo/laboratory-test-tubes-2280549/.
• “Gray Industrial Machine during Golden Hour · Free Stock Photo.” Free Stock Photos, https://www.pexels.com/photo/gray-industrial-machine-during-golden-hour-162568/

Part 2: Questions 

1. 1. The questions that I researched were… What is Thorium? How was Thorium discovered? And what does Thorium do? When was Thorium discovered? What’s an unique characteristic about Thorium?

1. I used Britannica, which I am very familiar with, I have done lots of projects with Britannica. I also used a website that I found online, it was a secure website and I found that there was multiple signs that teachers use that website.
2. I read through the paragraphs and then composed a sentence in my own words from each paragraph. I also found some key words in each sentence and used those words to formulate sentences.
3. I was very suspicious of each website I used, but I know that Britannica is an authentic resource, multiple teachers have recommended it to me.
4. When I was trying to save my project, my computer glitched and it lost all my progress, so I had to restart the project. The first time I did this project, I had more sentences than I do now, so I would probably add more sentences.