Curium synthesis

Curium can be synthesized in a nuclear reactor by several methods. The first synthesis involved alpha particle bombardment of plutonium-239 ... 

Nohehum may he synthesized by several methods involving irradiation of isotopes of curium, plutonium, and fermium in the form of thin targets with heavy ions of boron, carbon, and oxygen using double-recod technique. The nuclear reaction in the synthesis of No-254 carried out by Ghiorso and his group is as foUows ... 

Keller, C., Angew. Chem. Internat. Edn., 1965, 4, 903 (synthesis of trans-curium elements by heavy-ion bombardments). 

In 1945 the synthesis of elements 95 and 96 was announced. No. 95 corresponds to europium in the lanthanide series (p. 177) and was hence appropriately named americium. No. 96 corresponds to gadolinium, named after the Finnish mineralogist Gadolin. It was therefore felt that it was the turn of the Curies to be honoured, and the new element was named curium. Several isotopes of the two elements are known. 

The history of syntheses saw its periods of breakthroughs and slack periods. The first breakthrough period was from 1940 to 1945 when four transuranium elements were synthesized, namely, neptunium (Z = 93), plutonium (Z = 94), americium (Z = 95), and curium (Z = 96). The period till 1949 was a slack time and no new elements were discovered. In the next breakthrough period from 1949 to 1952 four more transuranium elements were added to the periodic system, namely berklium (Z = 97), californium (Z = 98), einsteinium (Z = 99), and fermium (Z = 100). In 1955, fifteen years after the synthesis of the first transuranium element, one more element, mendelevium (Z = 101), was synthesized. The next 25 years saw much less syntheses and only six new elements appeared in the periodic system. Here scientists encountered an entirely new situation and many former criteria for evaluating discoveries of elements proved inapplicable. 

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