Plutonium silicide

Template:Chembox Plutonium silicide is a binary inorganic compound of plutonium and silicon with the chemical formula PuSi. The compound forms gray crystals.

Synthesis

Reaction of plutonium dioxide and silicon carbide:

$𝖯𝗎{𝖮}_{\mathrm{𝟤}}\mathsf{+}𝖲𝗂𝖢\stackrel{T}{\to }𝖯𝗎𝖲𝗂\mathsf{+}𝖢{𝖮}_{\mathrm{𝟤}}\mathsf{\uparrow }$

Reaction of plutonium trifluoride with silicon:

$\mathrm{𝟦}𝖯𝗎{𝖥}_{\mathrm{𝟥}}\mathsf{+}\mathrm{𝟩}𝖲𝗂\stackrel{T}{\to }\mathrm{𝟦}𝖯𝗎𝖲𝗂\mathsf{+}\mathrm{𝟥}𝖲𝗂{𝖥}_{\mathrm{𝟦}}$

Physical properties

Plutonium silicide forms gray crystals of orthorhombic crystal system, space group Pnma, cell parameters: a = 0.7933 nm, b = 0.3847 nm, c = 0.5727 nm, Z = 4, TiSi type structure.

At a temperature of 72 K, plutonium silicide undergoes a ferromagnetic transition.