Radium is a chemical element with symbol Ra and atomic number 88. It is the sixth element in group 2 of the periodic table, also known as the alkaline earth metals. Pure radium is almost colorless, but it readily combines with nitrogen (rather than oxygen) on exposure to air, forming a black surface layer of radium nitride (Ra3N2). All isotopes of radium are highly radioactive, with the most stable isotope being radium-226, which has a half-life of 1600 years and decays into radon gas (specifically the isotope radon-222). When radium decays, ionizing radiation is a product, which can excite fluorescent chemicals and cause radioluminescence.
Radium, in the form of radium chloride, was discovered by Marie Curie and Pierre Curie in 1898. They extracted the radium compound from uraninite and published the discovery at the French Academy of Sciences five days later. Radium was isolated in its metallic state by Marie Curie and André-Louis Debierne through the electrolysis of radium chloride in 1910.
In nature, radium is found in uranium and (to a lesser extent) thorium ores in trace amounts as small as a seventh of a gram per ton of uraninite. Radium is not necessary for living organisms, and adverse health effects are likely when it is incorporated into biochemical processes because of its radioactivity and chemical reactivity. Currently, other than its use in nuclear medicine, radium has no commercial applications; formerly, it was used as a radioactive source for radioluminescent devices and also in radioactive quackery for its supposed curative powers. Today, these former applications are no longer in vogue because radium's toxicity has since become known, and less dangerous isotopes are used instead in radioluminescent devices.
Characteristics[edit]
Radium is the heaviest known alkaline earth metal and is the only radioactive member of its group. Its physical and chemical properties most closely resemble its lighter congener barium.
Physical[edit]
Pure radium is a volatile silvery-white metal. Its color rapidly vanishes in air, yielding a black layer of radium nitride (Ra3N2).[1] Its melting point is either 700 °C (1,292 °F) or 960 °C (1,760 °F),[a] and its boiling point is 1,737 °C (3,159 °F). Both of these values are slightly lower than those of barium, confirming periodic trends down the group 2 elements.[2] Like barium, radium crystallizes in the body-centered cubic structure at standard temperature and pressure: the radium–radium bond distance is 514.8 picometers.[3] Radium has a density of 5.5 g/cm3, higher than that of barium, again confirming periodic trends; the radium-barium density ratio is comparable to the radium-barium atomic mass ratio,[4] due to the two elements' similar crystal structures.[4][5]
Chemical[edit]
Radium, like barium, is a highly reactive metal and always exhibits its group oxidation state of +2.[1] It forms the colorless Ra2+ cation in aqueous solution, which is highly basic and does not form complexes readily.[1] Most radium compounds are therefore simple ionic compounds,[1] though participation from the 6s and 6p electrons (in addition to the valence 7s electrons) is expected due to relativistic effects and would enhance the covalent character of radium compounds such as RaF2 and RaAt2.[6] Solid radium compounds are white as radium ions provide no specific coloring, but they gradually turn yellow and then dark over time due to self-radiolysis from radium's alpha decay.[1] Insoluble radium compounds coprecipitate with all barium, most strontium, and most lead compounds.[7]
Isotopes[edit]
Main article: Isotopes of radium
Radium has 33 known isotopes, with mass numbers from 202 to 234: all of them are radioactive.[8] Four of these – 223Ra (half-life 11.4 days), 224Ra (3.64 days), 226Ra (1600 years), and 228Ra (5.75 years) – occur naturally in the decay chains of primordial thorium-232, uranium-235, and uranium-238 (223Ra from uranium-235, 226Ra from uranium-238, and the other two from thorium-232). These isotopes nevertheless still have half-lives too short to be primordial radionuclides and only exist in nature from these decay chains.[9] Together with the artificial 225Ra (15 d), these are the five most stable isotopes of radium.[9] All other known radium isotopes have half-lives under two hours, and the majority have half-lives under a minute.[8] At least 12 nuclear isomers have been reported; the most stable of them is radium-205m, with a half-life of between 130 and 230 milliseconds, which is still shorter than thirty-four ground-state radium isotopes.[8]
In the early history of the study of radioactivity, the different natural isotopes of radium were given different names. In this scheme, 223Ra was named actinium X (AcX), 224Ra thorium X (ThX), 226Ra radium (Ra), and 228Ra mesothorium 1 (MsTh1).[9] When it was realized that all of these are isotopes of radium, many of these names fell out of use, and "radium" came to refer to all isotopes, not just 226Ra.[9] Some of radium-226's decay products received historical names including "radium", ranging from radium A to radium G.[9]
226Ra is the most stable isotope of radium and is the last isotope in the (4n + 2) decay chain of uranium-238 with a half-life of over a century. Its immediate decay product is the dense radioactive noble gas radon, which is responsible for much of the danger of environmental radium.[10] It is 2.7 million times more radioactive than the same molar amount of natural uranium (mostly uranium-238), due to its proportionally shorter half-life.[11][12]
A sample of radium metal maintains itself at a higher temperature than its surroundings because of the radiation it emits – alpha particles, beta particles, and gamma rays. More specifically, natural radium (which is mostly 226Ra) emits mostly alpha particles, but other steps in its decay chain (the uranium or radium series) emit alpha or beta particles, and almost all particle emissions are accompanied by gamma rays.[13]
Discovery
For more details on this topic, see Marie Curie § New elements.
Radium was discovered by Marie Sklodowska-Curie and her husband Pierre Curie on 21 December 1898, in a uraninite sample.While studying the mineral earlier, the Curies removed uranium from it and found that the remaining material was still radioactive. They separated out an element similar to bismuth from pitchblende in July 1898, that turned out to be polonium. They then separated out a radioactive mixture consisting mostly of two components: compounds of barium, which gave a brilliant green flame color, and unknown radioactive compounds which gave carmine spectral lines that had never been documented before. The Curies found the radioactive compounds to be very similar to the barium compounds, except that they were more insoluble. This made it possible for the Curies to separate out the radioactive compounds and discover a new element in them. The Curies announced their discovery to the French Academy of Sciences on 26 December 1898. The naming of radium dates to about 1899, from the French word radium, formed in Modern Latin from radius (ray): this was in recognition of radium's power of emitting energy in the form of rays.
Subsequent developments
In 1910, radium was isolated as a pure metal by Marie Curie and André-Louis Debierne through the electrolysis of a pure radium chloride (RaCl2) solution using a mercury cathode, producing a radium–mercury amalgam. This amalgam was then heated in an atmosphere of hydrogen gas to remove the mercury, leaving pure radium metal. The same year, E. Eoler isolated radium by thermal decomposition of its azide, Ra(N3)2. Radium metal was first industrially produced in the beginning of the 20th century by Biraco, a subsidiary company of Union Minière du Haut Katanga (UMHK) in its Olen plant in Belgium.
The common historical unit for radioactivity, the curie, is based on the radioactivity of 226Ra.
Occurrence
All isotopes of radium have half-lives much shorter than the age of the Earth, so that any primordial radium would have decayed long ago. Radium nevertheless still occurs in the environment, as the isotopes 223Ra, 224Ra, 226Ra, and 228Ra are part of the decay chains of natural thorium and uranium isotopes. Of these four isotopes, the most long-lived is 226Ra (half-life 1600 years), a decay product of natural uranium. Because of its relative longevity, 226Ra is the most common isotope of the element. Thus, radium is found in tiny quantities in the uranium ore uraninite and various other uranium minerals, and in even tinier quantities in thorium minerals. One ton of pitchblende typically yields about one seventh of a gram of radium. One kilogram of the Earth's crust contains about 900 picograms of radium, and one liter of sea water contains about 89 femtograms of radium.
Extraction
In the first extraction of radium Curie used the residues after extraction of uranium from pitchblende. The uranium had been extracted by dissolution in sulphuric acid leaving radium sulphate, which is similar to barium sulphate but even less soluble in the residues. The residues also contained rather substantial amounts of barium sulphate which thus acted as a carrier for the radium sulphate. The first steps of the radium extraction process involved boiling with sodium hydroxide followed by hydrochloric acid treatment to remove as much as possible of other compounds. The remaining residue was then treated with sodium carbonate to convert the barium sulphate into barium carbonate carrying the radium, thus making it soluble in hydrochloric acid. After dissolution the barium and radium are reprecipitated as sulphates and this was repeated one or few times, for further purification of the mixed sulphate. Some impurities, that form insoluble sulphides, were removed by treating the chloride solution with hydrogen sulphide followed by filtering. When the mixed sulphate were pure enough they were once more converted to mixed chloride and barium an
Radium is a chemical element with symbol Ra and atomic number 88. It is the sixth element in group 2 of the periodic table, also known as the alkaline earth metals. Pure radium is almost colorless, but it readily combines with nitrogen (rather than oxygen) on exposure to air, forming a black surface layer of radium nitride (Ra3N2). All isotopes of radium are highly radioactive, with the most stable isotope being radium-226, which has a half-life of 1600 years and decays into radon gas (specifically the isotope radon-222). When radium decays, ionizing radiation is a product, which can excite fluorescent chemicals and cause radioluminescence.Radium, in the form of radium chloride, was discovered by Marie Curie and Pierre Curie in 1898. They extracted the radium compound from uraninite and published the discovery at the French Academy of Sciences five days later. Radium was isolated in its metallic state by Marie Curie and André-Louis Debierne through the electrolysis of radium chloride in 1910.In nature, radium is found in uranium and (to a lesser extent) thorium ores in trace amounts as small as a seventh of a gram per ton of uraninite. Radium is not necessary for living organisms, and adverse health effects are likely when it is incorporated into biochemical processes because of its radioactivity and chemical reactivity. Currently, other than its use in nuclear medicine, radium has no commercial applications; formerly, it was used as a radioactive source for radioluminescent devices and also in radioactive quackery for its supposed curative powers. Today, these former applications are no longer in vogue because radium's toxicity has since become known, and less dangerous isotopes are used instead in radioluminescent devices.Characteristics[edit]Radium is the heaviest known alkaline earth metal and is the only radioactive member of its group. Its physical and chemical properties most closely resemble its lighter congener barium.Physical[edit]Pure radium is a volatile silvery-white metal. Its color rapidly vanishes in air, yielding a black layer of radium nitride (Ra3N2).[1] Its melting point is either 700 °C (1,292 °F) or 960 °C (1,760 °F),[a] and its boiling point is 1,737 °C (3,159 °F). Both of these values are slightly lower than those of barium, confirming periodic trends down the group 2 elements.[2] Like barium, radium crystallizes in the body-centered cubic structure at standard temperature and pressure: the radium–radium bond distance is 514.8 picometers.[3] Radium has a density of 5.5 g/cm3, higher than that of barium, again confirming periodic trends; the radium-barium density ratio is comparable to the radium-barium atomic mass ratio,[4] due to the two elements' similar crystal structures.[4][5]
Chemical[edit]
Radium, like barium, is a highly reactive metal and always exhibits its group oxidation state of +2.[1] It forms the colorless Ra2+ cation in aqueous solution, which is highly basic and does not form complexes readily.[1] Most radium compounds are therefore simple ionic compounds,[1] though participation from the 6s and 6p electrons (in addition to the valence 7s electrons) is expected due to relativistic effects and would enhance the covalent character of radium compounds such as RaF2 and RaAt2.[6] Solid radium compounds are white as radium ions provide no specific coloring, but they gradually turn yellow and then dark over time due to self-radiolysis from radium's alpha decay.[1] Insoluble radium compounds coprecipitate with all barium, most strontium, and most lead compounds.[7]
Isotopes[edit]
Main article: Isotopes of radium
Radium has 33 known isotopes, with mass numbers from 202 to 234: all of them are radioactive.[8] Four of these – 223Ra (half-life 11.4 days), 224Ra (3.64 days), 226Ra (1600 years), and 228Ra (5.75 years) – occur naturally in the decay chains of primordial thorium-232, uranium-235, and uranium-238 (223Ra from uranium-235, 226Ra from uranium-238, and the other two from thorium-232). These isotopes nevertheless still have half-lives too short to be primordial radionuclides and only exist in nature from these decay chains.[9] Together with the artificial 225Ra (15 d), these are the five most stable isotopes of radium.[9] All other known radium isotopes have half-lives under two hours, and the majority have half-lives under a minute.[8] At least 12 nuclear isomers have been reported; the most stable of them is radium-205m, with a half-life of between 130 and 230 milliseconds, which is still shorter than thirty-four ground-state radium isotopes.[8]
In the early history of the study of radioactivity, the different natural isotopes of radium were given different names. In this scheme, 223Ra was named actinium X (AcX), 224Ra thorium X (ThX), 226Ra radium (Ra), and 228Ra mesothorium 1 (MsTh1).[9] When it was realized that all of these are isotopes of radium, many of these names fell out of use, and "radium" came to refer to all isotopes, not just 226Ra.[9] Some of radium-226's decay products received historical names including "radium", ranging from radium A to radium G.[9]
226Ra is the most stable isotope of radium and is the last isotope in the (4n + 2) decay chain of uranium-238 with a half-life of over a century. Its immediate decay product is the dense radioactive noble gas radon, which is responsible for much of the danger of environmental radium.[10] It is 2.7 million times more radioactive than the same molar amount of natural uranium (mostly uranium-238), due to its proportionally shorter half-life.[11][12]
A sample of radium metal maintains itself at a higher temperature than its surroundings because of the radiation it emits – alpha particles, beta particles, and gamma rays. More specifically, natural radium (which is mostly 226Ra) emits mostly alpha particles, but other steps in its decay chain (the uranium or radium series) emit alpha or beta particles, and almost all particle emissions are accompanied by gamma rays.[13]
Discovery
For more details on this topic, see Marie Curie § New elements.
Radium was discovered by Marie Sklodowska-Curie and her husband Pierre Curie on 21 December 1898, in a uraninite sample.While studying the mineral earlier, the Curies removed uranium from it and found that the remaining material was still radioactive. They separated out an element similar to bismuth from pitchblende in July 1898, that turned out to be polonium. They then separated out a radioactive mixture consisting mostly of two components: compounds of barium, which gave a brilliant green flame color, and unknown radioactive compounds which gave carmine spectral lines that had never been documented before. The Curies found the radioactive compounds to be very similar to the barium compounds, except that they were more insoluble. This made it possible for the Curies to separate out the radioactive compounds and discover a new element in them. The Curies announced their discovery to the French Academy of Sciences on 26 December 1898. The naming of radium dates to about 1899, from the French word radium, formed in Modern Latin from radius (ray): this was in recognition of radium's power of emitting energy in the form of rays.
Subsequent developments
In 1910, radium was isolated as a pure metal by Marie Curie and André-Louis Debierne through the electrolysis of a pure radium chloride (RaCl2) solution using a mercury cathode, producing a radium–mercury amalgam. This amalgam was then heated in an atmosphere of hydrogen gas to remove the mercury, leaving pure radium metal. The same year, E. Eoler isolated radium by thermal decomposition of its azide, Ra(N3)2. Radium metal was first industrially produced in the beginning of the 20th century by Biraco, a subsidiary company of Union Minière du Haut Katanga (UMHK) in its Olen plant in Belgium.
The common historical unit for radioactivity, the curie, is based on the radioactivity of 226Ra.
Occurrence
All isotopes of radium have half-lives much shorter than the age of the Earth, so that any primordial radium would have decayed long ago. Radium nevertheless still occurs in the environment, as the isotopes 223Ra, 224Ra, 226Ra, and 228Ra are part of the decay chains of natural thorium and uranium isotopes. Of these four isotopes, the most long-lived is 226Ra (half-life 1600 years), a decay product of natural uranium. Because of its relative longevity, 226Ra is the most common isotope of the element. Thus, radium is found in tiny quantities in the uranium ore uraninite and various other uranium minerals, and in even tinier quantities in thorium minerals. One ton of pitchblende typically yields about one seventh of a gram of radium. One kilogram of the Earth's crust contains about 900 picograms of radium, and one liter of sea water contains about 89 femtograms of radium.
Extraction
In the first extraction of radium Curie used the residues after extraction of uranium from pitchblende. The uranium had been extracted by dissolution in sulphuric acid leaving radium sulphate, which is similar to barium sulphate but even less soluble in the residues. The residues also contained rather substantial amounts of barium sulphate which thus acted as a carrier for the radium sulphate. The first steps of the radium extraction process involved boiling with sodium hydroxide followed by hydrochloric acid treatment to remove as much as possible of other compounds. The remaining residue was then treated with sodium carbonate to convert the barium sulphate into barium carbonate carrying the radium, thus making it soluble in hydrochloric acid. After dissolution the barium and radium are reprecipitated as sulphates and this was repeated one or few times, for further purification of the mixed sulphate. Some impurities, that form insoluble sulphides, were removed by treating the chloride solution with hydrogen sulphide followed by filtering. When the mixed sulphate were pure enough they were once more converted to mixed chloride and barium an
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