Word: plutonium
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Plutonium is found in nature only in tiny traces. But when fissionable U-235 is burned in a nuclear reactor with the U-238 that forms the bulk of natural uranium, some of the neutrons that it sends out are captured by the U-238 atoms, turning them into plutonium (Pu-239). The plutonium can then be separated from uranium by a comparatively simple chemical process. If the reactor is made right, it "breeds," i.e., it makes more plutonium than it burns U-235. Used as fuel in turn, the new-made plutonium breeds even faster, making good nuclear fuel...
...plutonium is about the most perverse material yet known to man. As a metal it is preposterous; while being heated to its rather low melting point (1184° F.), it passes through six different crystalline forms, expanding and contracting as much as 8.9% of its volume. It warps and distorts itself, disrupting anything to which it is attached. Because of this, Argonne Lab has given up trying to use pure plutonium in reactors, is making fuel elements out of plutonium alloyed or combined with other materials...
Dreadful Poison. Plutonium must be handled as if it were thousands of times more toxic than the deadliest poison, which it is: it is strongly radioactive, and if a microscopic amount of it gets into the human body it causes dreadful damage. Exposed to air, it oxidizes quickly, and the oxide floats off as a deadly, impalpable dust. If it is machined in air, the shavings burst spontaneously into flame, giving off clouds of deadly smoke...
Argonne's new facility contains a series of airtight compartments. Each will be equipped with miniature machines and filled with helium to prevent spontaneous combustion. The ingots of plutonium, about the size of a matchbox, will be handled by remote control, or through the 1,576 "glove ports," where the workers put their hands into long rubber gloves fitted to holes in the glass viewing panels...
Even when plutonium is stored in a carefully designed container, workers live close to catastrophe. Each small chunk of plutonium must be kept a respectful distance from the others, lest they combine to form the critical mass that sets off an atomic reaction. Even a human body in the wrong place can reflect enough neutrons into a chunk of plutonium to set off a chain reaction that could kill everyone in the lab with a blast of radiation...