Radioactive radium

In addition to being radioactive, radium is extremely chemically reactive and forms many compounds. These radium compounds are not only radioactive but also toxic and should be handled by experienced personnel. 

Radium is the 85th most abundant element found in the Earths crust. Radium is found in the uranium ores pitchblende and chalcolite, which are both very radioactive. Radium metal exists to the extent of only one part to every three million parts of the uranium ore (pitchblende). Only about one gram of radium is found in every seven or eight tons of uranium ore. This scarcity seems to be the reason that only about five pounds of uranium are produced each year in the entire world. Uranium ores are found in the states of Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado in the United States and in Canada, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia, Zaire, and France. 

The uranium series contains two radionuclides of special interest, 226Ra (ti/2 = 1600 y) and its daughter, 38 d 222Rn. 226Ra (and its daughters) are responsible for a major fraction of the radiation dose received from internal radioactivity. Radium is present in rocks and soils, and as a consequence in water, food, and human tissue. The high specific activity and gaseous decay products of radium also make it difficult to handle in the laboratory. 

The neutron as a distinct, separate particle was discovered in 1932 by a British physicist, James Chadwick (1891-1974). He was using radiation emitted from radioactive radium to bombard various materials. When he... 

The technique that the painters used included making a sharp point on their brushes by twirling the brush between their lips. They then dipped the bmsh into radioactive radium paint. The dipping and twirling sequence ultimately caused the painters to get a lot of radium on their lips. This resulted in many cases of lip and... 

The Group 2A(2) elements are called alkaline earth metals because their oxides give basic (alkaline) solutions and melt at such high temperatures that they remained as solids ( earths ) in the alchemists fires. The group includes rare beryllium (Be), common magnesium (Mg) and calcium (Ca), less familiar strontium (Sr) and barium (Ba), and radioactive radium (Ra). The Group 2A(2) Family Portrait presents an overview of these elements. 

Polonium is a strong emitter of a-particles approximately 1 gram of °Po emits 140 watts of heat energy. For this reason, it is used as a source of thermoelectric power in satellites. It is also utilized as a source of neutrons (when mixed with beryllium), as an antistatic device in industrial equipment, and in brushes that remove dust from photographic film, see also Curie, Marie Sklodowska Halogens Radioactivity Radium Uranium. 

Alpha radiation The radiation that was deflected toward the negatively charged plate was named alpha radiation. It is made up of alpha particles. An alpha particle contains two protons and two neutrons, and thus has a 2+ charge, which explains why alpha particles are attracted to the negatively charged plate as shown in Figure 4.21. An alpha particle is equivalent to a helium-4 nucleus and is represented by 2He or a. The alpha decay of radioactive radium-226 into radon-222 is shown below. 

In 1903, Rutherford and his young wife visited Pierre and Marie Curie in Paris on the very day that Madame Curie received her doctorate in physics. That evening, during a party in the garden of the Curies home, Pierre Curie brought out a tube coated with a phosphor and containing a large quantity of radioactive radium in solution. 

In setting up a fuel cycle with transmutation and seeking proper environmental protection, it is appropriate to modify the uranium mining process so that the associate highly radioactive radium and thorium could be co-extracted together with natural uranium for subsequent transmutation in fast reactors. 

Suggest explanations for (a) accumulation of PCBs in fat tissue, (b) occurrence of bone cancer from exposure to radioactive radium, and (c) which organ is most likely to develop cancer from exposure to radioactive iodine. 

Water on and beneath the surface of the geosphere plays a strong role in pollution and the distribution of toxic substances. Toxic substances from wastes improperly disposed to the geosphere can leach into groundwater and contaminate water supplies. Radioactive radium resulting from the decay of uranium in aquifer formations has caused some groundwater sources of drinking water to be abandoned. 

Soon after Becquerel s discovery, a young graduate student named Marie Sklodowska Curie (1867-1934) (one of the first women in France to pursue doctoral work) decided to study uranic rays for her doctoral thesis. Her first task was to determine whether any other substances besides uranium (the heaviest known element at the time) emitted these rays. In her search. Curie discovered two new elements, both of which also emitted uranic rays. Curie named one of her newly discovered elements polonium, after her home country of Poland. The other element she named radium, because of its high level of radioactivity. Radium is so radioactive that it gently glows in the dark and emits significant amounts of heat. Since it was clear that these rays were not unique to uranium. Curie changed the name of uranic rays to radioactivity. In 1903, Curie and her husband, Pierre Curie, as well as Becquerel were all awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for the discovery of radioactivity. In 1911, Curie received a second Nobel Prize, this time in chemistry, for her discovery of the two new elements. 

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