Curium

Curium: the essentials

 Brief description: curium is a hard, brittle, radioactive silvery metal. It does not occur in nature and must be made in a nuclear reactor by neutron capture reactions from plutonium and americium isotopes. It tarnishes slowly in dry air at room temperature. Curium was first produced in 1944 at the University of California, Berkeley in the USA in a cyclotron by bombarding plutonium-239 (²³⁹Pu) with α-particles. It was isolated in visible quantities as the hydroxide, Cm(OH)₃, in 1947.

Most compounds of Cm(III) are faintly yellow. If curium enters the body it accumulates in the bones, and is therefore very toxic as its radiation destroys the red-cell forming mechanism. Curium is a radioactive rare earth metal. The most stable isotope is ²⁴⁷Cm which has a half-life of 16 million years. Curium is probably present in uranium ores. It has a few specialised uses but only a few of its compounds are known.

Isolation

Isolation: coming soon!

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