Actinium

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Actinium

Actinium is a chemical element in the periodic table that has the symbol Ac and atomic number 89.

Notable characteristics

Actinium is a silvery radioactive metallic element. Due to its intense radioactivity, Actinium glows in the dark with an eerie blue light. It is found only in traces in uranium ores as ²²⁷Ac, an α and β emitter with a half-life of 21.773 years. One ton of uranium ore contains about a tenth of a gram of actinium.

Applications

It is about 150 times as radioactive as radium, making it valuable as a neutron source. Otherwise it has no significant industrial applications.

²²⁵Ac is used in medicine to produce ²¹³ in a reusable generator or can be used alone as an agent for radio-immunotherapy.

History

Actinium was discovered in 1899 by André-Louis Debierne, a French chemist, who separated it from pitchblende. Friedrich Otto Giesel independently discovered actinium in 1902. The chemical behavior of actinium is similar to that of the rare earth lanthanum.

The word actinium comes from the Greek aktis, aktinos, meaning beam or ray.

Occurrence

Actinium is found in trace amounts in uranium ore, but more commonly is made in milligram amounts by the neutron irradiation of ²²⁶ in a nuclear reactor. Actinium metal has been prepared by the reduction of actinium fluoride with lithium vapor at about 1100 to 1300ºC.

Isotopes

Naturally occurring actinium is composed of 1 radioactive isotope; ²²⁷Ac. 36 radioisotopes have been characterized with the most stable being ²²⁷Ac with a half-life of 21.772 y, ²²⁵Ac with a half-life of 10.0 days, and ²²⁶Ac with a half-life of 29.37 h. All of the remaining radioactive isotopes have half-lifes that are less than 10 hours and the majority of these have half lifes that are less than 1 minute. The shortest-lived isotope of actinium is ²¹⁷Ac which decays through alpha decay and electron capture. It has a half-life of 69 ns. Actinium also has 2 meta states.

Purified ²²⁷Ac comes into equilibrium with its decay products at the end of 185 days, and then decays according to its 21.773-year half-life.

The isotopes of actinium range in atomic weight from 206 amu (²⁰⁶Ac) to 236 amu (²³⁶Ac).

Precautions

²²⁷Ac is extremely radioactive, and in terms of its potential for radiation induced health effects, ²²⁷Ac is even more dangerous than plutonium. Ingesting even small amounts of ²²⁷Ac would present a serious health hazard.

References

Los Alamos National Laboratory - Actinium

External links

WebElements.com - Actinium

Chemical elements | Actinides

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