Thorium - Periodic Table of Videos

Thorium, element 90 on the periodic table.

Featuring Professor Sir Martyn Poliakoff.

[JeremiahMcCoy]

My grandfather worked with Thorium while working on some Molten Salt Reactor designs during his stint at ORNL. He was quite keen on it as an alternative fuel source.

[jbdragonlance]

I love how he teaches us. I really wish he was a high school teacher. Maybe I wouldn't have failed Chem. The prof is amazing! Best Teacher in the world award!

[abdelhamidcherragui]

The things the professor carries in his pockets are just fascinating!

[leburnham]

Here in the US, Thorium was widely used in vacuum valves in the early days of radio. They used a Thoriated Tungsten  filament. Also my Alladin kerosene lamps and my Coleman white gas lamps both use Thoriated mantles in them.Please keep up this series. I find it quite informative.

[NightWind]

he asking for that haircut in the barbershop
"what kind of cut do you want"
"science"

[gordonmcdowell]

Enjoy this very much. At 6:50 you mention Thorium Oxide and the challenge of fabricating solid fuel. I'd love for your viewers to know that many thorium advocates (myself being one) feel that only in Molten Salt Reactors can thorium be efficiently consumed as a nuclear fuel. That is a solution where fabricating nuclear fuel is not a challenge, and in fact the CHEMICAL properties of thorium provide distinct advantages over breeding U/Pu. So in solid fuel: Th=harder... in molten salts: Th=easier.

[pco]

Professor Sir Martyn Poliakoff is my hero! I want a bobblehead of him on my desk!

[EmilyClearwater]

Thanks to videos like these, I can honestly say I've garnered more knowledge outside of school than in. Thanks so, so much for putting the time, effort, and cost into making these videos!

[vitorpmemm]

The Professor deserves absolute respect. A source of unique and deep knowledge for everyone with internet. My sadness is that even today, some people cannot view his videos. He is the best Professor I had in life, without a single because he don´t hesitate on spreading all he know in a special and "addicting" way, without fear of a test and scores. all elements are amazing but thorium is my favourite

[richardzippler]

I want to thank you for your show. I'm an engineer not a chemist. So chemistry is kind of boring, for me. But you kids get so excited. you take one clear liquid and you put it with another clear liquid and you get a clear liquid, yeah ! you make chemistry seem fun and interesting, thanks. Keep it up, we love you out here.

[stroke_of_luck]

Thank you for a very solid description of the problems with it.

[wild_fire]

1st of all congratulations on getting your hands on Thorium.
2nd Great job on getting so much information and history on Thorium with there not being to much in the world.
And 3rd: LOVE YOUR

[scottssurfshop]

In the past, Thorium Oxides were used to dope optical glass lenses.

Love the channel!

[Spartan]

FINALLY!!!! THANK YOU PROFESSOR!!!!

I would love to see you in a talk with Kirk Sorensen, that guy is a genius in his own right ( he should be, he was an astrophysicist for NASA before he went back to get his PhD in Nuclear Physics). Using FLiBe salts in a reactor instead of light or heavy water you do not need to use 60-70x times normal pressure to generate power through steam, and its incredibly more stable than current and even new proposed H2O/2H2O reactors. Not to mention that you can use up around 95% of Thorium fuel while depleting Plutonium at the same time where as with U238 Oxide in a light water reactor you generally use up .5% of the fissile material. This cuts down on Nuclear byproduct waste by itself alone, not to mention that per KG of 232 Thorium vs 238 Uranium, Thorium is 1000X more energy dense. Given as you stated there are issues to overcome, however if Thorium FLiBe technology were to be given the same funding and attention that Uranium 238 reactors have been given we could easily get LFTR (Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors) within the next 5 years thanks to all the kept research from the scientists at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory who ran a small scale molten salt reactor powered by Thorium back in the early 1960's- early 1980's.

SPREAD THE WORD, SUPPORT LFTR's!

[eaglesoftware]

Beautiful video I like the way the futuristic Thorium element is presented. Thank you Sir Poliakoff.

[codediporpal]

Fabulous video. So dense with key information.

[wo]

"You are not worthium" - Thorium

[seigeengine]

It is very pleasnt to hear about thorium from a level-headed perspective.

Few things turn me off more than fanaticism.

[colefrick]

I remember watching when the playlist for all the elements was only around 40-50 videos or so, I stopped watching for some reason, so now I’m back and catching up.

I did forget how interesting the professor and the editors / creators explain everything and it makes it easier to learn.

[ChrisWilson]

A working megawatt range Thorium reactor ran in the US at ORNL for more than a year around 1969. I don't think its cost was higher than a Uranium reactor though I'm no expert.
Awesome video.