Florida State researcher’s plutonium discovery helps work to clean up nuclear waste

Plutonium has long been part of many countries’ nuclear energy strategies, but scientists are still unlocking the mysteries behind this complicated element and seeing how they can use heavier, nuclear elements to clean up nuclear waste. Now, new research by Florida State University Professor Thomas Albrecht-Schmitt shows that plutonium doesn’t exactly work the way scientists thought it did. The findings will contribute to his team’s efforts to develop technologies to clean up nuclear waste. The work was published today in “Nature Chemistry.”