Thorium is a weakly radioactive metallic chemical element with the symbol Th and atomic number 90. Thorium is silvery and tarnishes black when it is exposed to air, forming thorium dioxide. It is moderately soft, malleable, and has a high melting point.




Thorium was discovered in 1828 by the Norwegian amateur mineralogist Morten Thrane Esmark and identified by the Swedish chemist Jöns Jacob Berzelius, who named it after Thor, the Norse god of thunder. Its first applications were developed in the late 19th century. Thoriums radioactivity was widely acknowledged during the first decades of the 20th century. In the second half of the century, thorium was replaced in many uses due to concerns about its radioactivity.

Morten Thrane Esmark


A team from the Nuclear Research and Consultancy Group (NRG) the Netherlands has built the first molten salt reactor powered by thorium in decades. There are several basic facts of nuclear power that have made it a tough sell around the world. However we are going to go through the Thorium in nuclear reactors a bit more extensively in a future article.


As a general note, Thorium cannot in itself power a reactor. Because unlike natural uranium, it does not contain enough fissile material to initiate a nuclear chain reaction. As a result it must first be bombarded with neutrons to produce the highly radioactive isotope uranium-233, which once we elaborate in our future article will be our main argument on why Plutonium and Uranium reactors must be replaced with Thorium instead!


Thank you for your attention, next article we will talk about Thorium Reactors that can result in even better and safer energy production than the current Plutonium and Uranium alternatives!


Safer, Novice nuclear researcher and chinese mofa.