Radium is a
chemical element
A chemical element is a species of atoms that have a given number of protons in their nuclei, including the pure substance consisting only of that species. Unlike chemical compounds, chemical elements cannot be broken down into simpler sub ...
with the
symbol
A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different conc ...
Ra and
atomic number
The atomic number or nuclear charge number (symbol ''Z'') of a chemical element is the charge number of an atomic nucleus. For ordinary nuclei, this is equal to the proton number (''n''p) or the number of protons found in the nucleus of every ...
88. It is the sixth element in
group 2 The term Group 2 may refer to:
* Alkaline earth metal, a chemical element classification
* Astronaut Group 2, also known as The New Nine, the second group of astronauts selected by NASA in 1962
* Group 2 (racing), an FIA classification for cars in a ...
of the
periodic table
The periodic table, also known as the periodic table of the (chemical) elements, is a rows and columns arrangement of the chemical elements. It is widely used in chemistry, physics, and other sciences, and is generally seen as an icon of ch ...
, also known as the
alkaline earth metal
The alkaline earth metals are six chemical elements in group 2 of the periodic table. They are beryllium (Be), magnesium (Mg), calcium (Ca), strontium (Sr), barium (Ba), and radium (Ra).. The elements have very similar properties: they are al ...
s. Pure radium is silvery-white, but it readily reacts with nitrogen (rather than oxygen) upon exposure to air, forming a black surface layer of radium nitride (Ra
3N
2). All
isotopes
Isotopes are two or more types of atoms that have the same atomic number (number of protons in their nuclei) and position in the periodic table (and hence belong to the same chemical element), and that differ in nucleon numbers (mass numbers) ...
of radium are
radioactive
Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is consid ...
, the most stable isotope being
radium-226
Radium (88Ra) has no stable or nearly stable isotopes, and thus a standard atomic weight cannot be given. The longest lived, and most common, isotope of radium is 226Ra with a half-life of . 226Ra occurs in the decay chain of 238U (often referre ...
with a
half-life
Half-life (symbol ) is the time required for a quantity (of substance) to reduce to half of its initial value. The term is commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay or how long stable ato ...
of 1600 years. When radium decays, it emits
ionizing radiation
Ionizing radiation (or ionising radiation), including nuclear radiation, consists of subatomic particles or electromagnetic waves that have sufficient energy to ionize atoms or molecules by detaching electrons from them. Some particles can travel ...
as a by-product, which can excite
fluorescent
Fluorescence is the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation. It is a form of luminescence. In most cases, the emitted light has a longer wavelength, and therefore a lower photon energy, tha ...
chemicals and cause
radioluminescence
Radioluminescence is the phenomenon by which light is produced in a material by bombardment with ionizing radiation such as alpha particles, beta particles, or gamma rays. Radioluminescence is used as a low level light source for night illumi ...
.
Radium, in the form of
radium chloride
Radium chloride (RaCl2) is a salt of radium and chlorine, and the first radium compound isolated in a pure state. Marie Curie and André-Louis Debierne used it in their original separation of radium from barium. The first preparation of radium met ...
, was
discovered by
Marie
Marie may refer to:
People Name
* Marie (given name)
* Marie (Japanese given name)
* Marie (murder victim), girl who was killed in Florida after being pushed in front of a moving vehicle in 1973
* Marie (died 1759), an enslaved Cree person in Tro ...
and
Pierre Curie
Pierre Curie ( , ; 15 May 1859 – 19 April 1906) was a French physicist, a pioneer in crystallography, magnetism, piezoelectricity, and radioactivity. In 1903, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics with his wife, Marie Curie, and Henri Becqu ...
in 1898 from ore mined at
Jáchymov
Jáchymov (); german: Sankt Joachimsthal or ''Joachimsthal'') is a spa town in Karlovy Vary District in the Karlovy Vary Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 2,300 inhabitants.
The historical core of the town from the 16th century is we ...
. They extracted the radium compound from
uraninite
Uraninite, formerly pitchblende, is a radioactive, uranium-rich mineral and ore with a chemical composition that is largely UO2 but because of oxidation typically contains variable proportions of U3O8. Radioactive decay of the uranium causes t ...
and published the discovery at the
French Academy of Sciences
The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV of France, Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific me ...
five days later. Radium was isolated in its
metal
A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typicall ...
lic state by Marie Curie and
André-Louis Debierne
André-Louis Debierne (; 14 July 1874 – 31 August 1949) was a French chemist. He is often considered the discoverer of the element actinium, though H. W. Kirby disputes this and awards credit instead to German chemist Friedrich Oskar Giesel.
De ...
through the
electrolysis
In chemistry and manufacturing, electrolysis is a technique that uses direct electric current (DC) to drive an otherwise non-spontaneous chemical reaction. Electrolysis is commercially important as a stage in the separation of elements from n ...
of radium chloride in 1911.
In nature, radium is found in
uranium
Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...
and (to a lesser extent)
thorium
Thorium is a weakly radioactive metallic chemical element with the symbol Th and atomic number 90. Thorium is silvery and tarnishes black when it is exposed to air, forming thorium dioxide; it is moderately soft and malleable and has a high me ...
ores in trace amounts as small as a seventh of a gram per ton of uraninite. Radium is not necessary for
living organisms
In biology, an organism () is any life, living system that functions as an individual entity. All organisms are composed of cells (cell theory). Organisms are classified by taxonomy (biology), taxonomy into groups such as Multicellular o ...
, and adverse health effects are likely when it is incorporated into biochemical processes because of its radioactivity and chemical reactivity. , other than its use in
nuclear medicine
Nuclear medicine or nucleology is a medical specialty involving the application of radioactive substances in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Nuclear imaging, in a sense, is "radiology done inside out" because it records radiation emitting ...
, radium has no commercial applications. Formerly, around the 1950s, it was used as a radioactive source for
radioluminescent
Radioluminescence is the phenomenon by which light is produced in a material by bombardment with ionizing radiation such as alpha particles, beta particles, or gamma rays. Radioluminescence is used as a low level light source for night illumina ...
devices and also in
radioactive quackery
Radioactive quackery is quackery that improperly promotes radioactivity as a therapy for illnesses. Unlike radiotherapy, which is the scientifically sound use of radiation for the destruction of cells (usually cancer cells), quackery pseudo- ...
for its supposed curative power. These applications have become obsolete owing to radium's toxicity; , less dangerous isotopes (of other elements) are instead used in radioluminescent devices.
Bulk properties
Radium is the heaviest known
alkaline earth metal
The alkaline earth metals are six chemical elements in group 2 of the periodic table. They are beryllium (Be), magnesium (Mg), calcium (Ca), strontium (Sr), barium (Ba), and radium (Ra).. The elements have very similar properties: they are al ...
and is the only
radioactive
Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is consid ...
member of its group. Its physical and chemical properties most closely resemble its lighter
congener,
barium
Barium is a chemical element with the symbol Ba and atomic number 56. It is the fifth element in group 2 and is a soft, silvery alkaline earth metal. Because of its high chemical reactivity, barium is never found in nature as a free element.
Th ...
.
Pure radium is a
volatile silvery-white metal, although its lighter congeners
calcium
Calcium is a chemical element with the symbol Ca and atomic number 20. As an alkaline earth metal, calcium is a reactive metal that forms a dark oxide-nitride layer when exposed to air. Its physical and chemical properties are most similar to ...
,
strontium
Strontium is the chemical element with the symbol Sr and atomic number 38. An alkaline earth metal, strontium is a soft silver-white yellowish metallic element that is highly chemically reactive. The metal forms a dark oxide layer when it is ex ...
, and barium have a slight yellow tint.
[Greenwood and Earnshaw, p. 112] This tint rapidly vanishes on exposure to air, yielding a black layer of what is probably
radium nitride
Radium is a chemical element with the 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 silvery-white, but it readily reacts with nitrogen (rather t ...
(Ra
3N
2).
[Kirby et al., p. 4] Its
melting point
The melting point (or, rarely, liquefaction point) of a substance is the temperature at which it changes state from solid to liquid. At the melting point the solid and liquid phase exist in equilibrium. The melting point of a substance depends ...
is either or and its
boiling point
The boiling point of a substance is the temperature at which the vapor pressure of a liquid equals the pressure surrounding the liquid and the liquid changes into a vapor.
The boiling point of a liquid varies depending upon the surrounding envir ...
is ; however, this is not well established.
Both of these values are slightly lower than those of barium, confirming
periodic trend
Periodic trends are specific patterns that are present in the periodic table that illustrate different aspects of a certain element. They were discovered by the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev in the year 1863. Major periodic trends include atom ...
s down the group 2 elements.
Like barium and the
alkali metal
The alkali metals consist of the chemical elements lithium (Li), sodium (Na), potassium (K),The symbols Na and K for sodium and potassium are derived from their Latin names, ''natrium'' and ''kalium''; these are still the origins of the names ...
s, radium crystallizes in the
body-centered cubic
In crystallography, the cubic (or isometric) crystal system is a crystal system where the unit cell is in the shape of a cube. This is one of the most common and simplest shapes found in crystals and minerals.
There are three main varieties of ...
structure at
standard temperature and pressure
Standard temperature and pressure (STP) are standard sets of conditions for experimental measurements to be established to allow comparisons to be made between different sets of data. The most used standards are those of the International Union o ...
: the radium–radium bond distance is 514.8
picometer
The picometre (international spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures; SI symbol: pm) or picometer (American spelling) is a unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), equal to , or one trillionth of ...
s. Radium has a density of 5.5 g/cm
3, higher than that of barium, again confirming periodic trends; the radium-barium density ratio is comparable to the radium-barium atomic mass ratio,
due to the two elements' similar crystal structures.
Isotopes
![Decay chain(4n+2, Uranium series)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Decay_chain%284n%2B2%2C_Uranium_series%29.svg)
Radium has 33 known isotopes, with
mass number
The mass number (symbol ''A'', from the German word ''Atomgewicht'' tomic weight, also called atomic mass number or nucleon number, is the total number of protons and neutrons (together known as nucleons) in an atomic nucleus. It is approxima ...
s from 202 to 234: all of them are
radioactive
Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is consid ...
. Four of these –
223Ra (
half-life
Half-life (symbol ) is the time required for a quantity (of substance) to reduce to half of its initial value. The term is commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay or how long stable ato ...
11.4 days),
224Ra (3.64 days),
226Ra (1600 years), and
228Ra (5.75 years) – occur naturally in the
decay chain
In nuclear science, the decay chain refers to a series of radioactive decays of different radioactive decay products as a sequential series of transformations. It is also known as a "radioactive cascade". Most radioisotopes do not decay direct ...
s of primordial
thorium
Thorium is a weakly radioactive metallic chemical element with the symbol Th and atomic number 90. Thorium is silvery and tarnishes black when it is exposed to air, forming thorium dioxide; it is moderately soft and malleable and has a high me ...
-232,
uranium-235
Uranium-235 (235U or U-235) is an isotope of uranium making up about 0.72% of natural uranium. Unlike the predominant isotope uranium-238, it is fissile, i.e., it can sustain a nuclear chain reaction. It is the only fissile isotope that exis ...
, and
uranium-238
Uranium-238 (238U or U-238) is the most common isotope of uranium found in nature, with a relative abundance of 99%. Unlike uranium-235, it is non-fissile, which means it cannot sustain a chain reaction in a thermal-neutron reactor. However, it ...
(
223Ra from uranium-235,
226Ra from uranium-238, and the other two from thorium-232). These isotopes nevertheless still have
half-lives
Half-life (symbol ) is the time required for a quantity (of substance) to reduce to half of its initial value. The term is commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay or how long stable at ...
too short to be
primordial radionuclides and only exist in nature from these decay chains.
[Salutsky, M.L. & Kirby, H.W. THE RADIOCHEMISTRY OF RADIUM, report, December 1, 1964](_blank)
United States, University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department. Page 3. Together with the mostly
artificial
Artificiality (the state of being artificial or manmade) is the state of being the product of intentional human manufacture, rather than occurring naturally through processes not involving or requiring human activity.
Connotations
Artificiality ...
225Ra (15 d), which occurs in nature only as a decay product of minute traces of
neptunium-237
Neptunium (93Np) is usually considered an artificial element, although trace quantities are found in nature, so a standard atomic weight cannot be given. Like all trace or artificial elements, it has no stable isotopes. The first isotope to be s ...
,
these are the five most stable isotopes of radium.
All other 27 known radium isotopes have half-lives under two hours, and the majority have half-lives under a minute. At least 12
nuclear isomer
A nuclear isomer is a metastable state of an atomic nucleus, in which one or more nucleons (protons or neutrons) occupy excited state, higher energy levels than in the ground state of the same nucleus. "Metastable" describes nuclei whose excited ...
s have been reported; the most stable of them is radium-205m, with a half-life between 130 and 230 milliseconds; this is still shorter than twenty-four
ground-state
The ground state of a quantum mechanics, quantum-mechanical system is its stationary state of lowest energy; the energy of the ground state is known as the zero-point energy of the system. An excited state is any state with energy greater than t ...
radium isotopes.
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 (MsTh
1).
When it was realized that all of these are isotopes of the same element, many of these names fell out of use, and "radium" came to refer to all isotopes, not just
226Ra. Some of radium-226's decay products received historical names including "radium", ranging from radium A to radium G, with the letter indicating approximately how far they were down the chain from their parent
226Ra. Radium emanation =
222Rn, RaA =
218Po, RaB =
214Pb, RaC =
214Bi, RaC
1 =
214Po, RaC
2 =
210Tl, RaD =
210Pb, RaE =
210Bi, RaF =
210Po and RaG =
206Pb.
226Ra is the most stable isotope of radium and is the last isotope in the (4''n'' + 2) decay chain of uranium-238 with a half-life of over a millennium: it makes up almost all of natural radium. Its immediate decay product is the dense radioactive
noble gas
The noble gases (historically also the inert gases; sometimes referred to as aerogens) make up a class of chemical elements with similar properties; under standard conditions, they are all odorless, colorless, monatomic gases with very low chemi ...
radon
Radon is a chemical element with the symbol Rn and atomic number 86. It is a radioactive, colourless, odourless, tasteless noble gas. It occurs naturally in minute quantities as an intermediate step in the normal radioactive decay chains through ...
(specifically the isotope
222Rn), which is responsible for much of the danger of environmental radium.
It is 2.7 million times more radioactive than the same
molar amount of natural
uranium
Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...
(mostly uranium-238), due to its proportionally shorter half-life.
A sample of radium metal maintains itself at a higher
temperature
Temperature is a physical quantity that expresses quantitatively the perceptions of hotness and coldness. Temperature is measured with a thermometer.
Thermometers are calibrated in various temperature scales that historically have relied o ...
than its surroundings because of the radiation it emits –
alpha particles
Alpha particles, also called alpha rays or alpha radiation, consist of two protons and two neutrons bound together into a particle identical to a helium-4 nucleus. They are generally produced in the process of alpha decay, but may also be prod ...
,
beta particles
A beta particle, also called beta ray or beta radiation (symbol β), is a high-energy, high-speed electron or positron emitted by the radioactive decay of an atomic nucleus during the process of beta decay. There are two forms of beta decay, β ...
, and
gamma rays
A gamma ray, also known as gamma radiation (symbol γ or \gamma), is a penetrating form of electromagnetic radiation arising from the radioactive decay of atomic nuclei. It consists of the shortest wavelength electromagnetic waves, typically ...
. 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.
In 2013, it was discovered at
CERN
The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in a northwestern suburb of Gene ...
that the nucleus of radium-224 is pear-shaped using a technique called
coulomb excitation Coulomb excitation is a technique in experimental nuclear physics to probe the electromagnetic aspect of nuclear structure. In coulomb excitation, a nucleus is excited by an inelastic collision with another nucleus through the electromagnetic intera ...
. This was the first discovery of an asymmetric nucleus. This is a strong circumstantial evidence that certain heavy, unstable atomic nuclei have distorted nuclei, in this case, a pear shape.
Chemistry
Radium, like barium, is a highly
reactive
Reactive may refer to:
*Generally, capable of having a reaction (disambiguation)
*An adjective abbreviation denoting a bowling ball coverstock made of reactive resin
*Reactivity (chemistry)
*Reactive mind
*Reactive programming
See also
*Reactanc ...
metal and always exhibits its group oxidation state of +2.
It forms the colorless Ra
2+ cation
An ion () is an atom or molecule with a net electrical charge.
The charge of an electron is considered to be negative by convention and this charge is equal and opposite to the charge of a proton, which is considered to be positive by convent ...
in
aqueous solution
An aqueous solution is a solution in which the solvent is water. It is mostly shown in chemical equations by appending (aq) to the relevant chemical formula. For example, a solution of table salt, or sodium chloride (NaCl), in water would be re ...
, which is highly
basic
BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College ...
and does not form
complexes readily.
Most radium compounds are therefore simple
ionic compounds,
though participation from the 6s and 6p electrons (in addition to the valence 7s electrons) is expected due to
relativistic effects
Relativistic quantum chemistry combines relativistic mechanics with quantum chemistry to calculate elemental properties and structure, especially for the heavier elements of the periodic table. A prominent example is an explanation for the color of ...
and would enhance the
covalent
A covalent bond is a chemical bond that involves the sharing of electrons to form electron pairs between atoms. These electron pairs are known as shared pairs or bonding pairs. The stable balance of attractive and repulsive forces between atoms ...
character of radium compounds such as Ra
F2 and Ra
At2.
For this reason, the
standard electrode potential
In electrochemistry, standard electrode potential E^\ominus, or E^\ominus_, is a measure of the reducing power of any element or compound. The IUPAC "Gold Book" defines it as: ''"the value of the standard emf (electromotive force) of a cell in wh ...
for the half-reaction Ra
2+ (aq) + 2e
− → Ra (s) is −2.916
V, even slightly lower than the value −2.92 V for barium, whereas the values had previously smoothly increased down the group (Ca: −2.84 V; Sr: −2.89 V; Ba: −2.92 V).
[Greenwood and Earnshaw, p. 111] The values for barium and radium are almost exactly the same as those of the heavier alkali metals
potassium
Potassium is the chemical element with the symbol K (from Neo-Latin ''kalium'') and atomic number19. Potassium is a silvery-white metal that is soft enough to be cut with a knife with little force. Potassium metal reacts rapidly with atmosphe ...
,
rubidium
Rubidium is the chemical element with the symbol Rb and atomic number 37. It is a very soft, whitish-grey solid in the alkali metal group, similar to potassium and caesium. Rubidium is the first alkali metal in the group to have a density higher ...
, and
caesium
Caesium (IUPAC spelling) (or cesium in American English) is a chemical element with the symbol Cs and atomic number 55. It is a soft, silvery-golden alkali metal with a melting point of , which makes it one of only five elemental metals that a ...
.
Compounds
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
Radiolysis is the dissociation of molecules by ionizing radiation. It is the cleavage of one or several chemical bonds resulting from exposure to high-energy flux. The radiation in this context is associated with ionizing radiation; radiolysis is ...
from radium's
alpha decay
Alpha decay or α-decay is a type of radioactive decay in which an atomic nucleus emits an alpha particle (helium nucleus) and thereby transforms or 'decays' into a different atomic nucleus, with a mass number that is reduced by four and an atom ...
.
Insoluble radium compounds
coprecipitate with all barium, most
strontium
Strontium is the chemical element with the symbol Sr and atomic number 38. An alkaline earth metal, strontium is a soft silver-white yellowish metallic element that is highly chemically reactive. The metal forms a dark oxide layer when it is ex ...
, and most
lead
Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...
compounds.
[Kirby et al., p. 8]
Radium oxide
Radium is a chemical element with the 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 silvery-white, but it readily reacts with nitrogen (rather t ...
(RaO) has not been characterized well past its existence, despite oxides being common compounds for the other alkaline earth metals.
Radium hydroxide (Ra(OH)
2) is the most readily soluble among the alkaline earth hydroxides and is a stronger base than its barium congener,
barium hydroxide
Barium hydroxide is a chemical compound with the chemical formula Ba(OH)2. The monohydrate (''x'' = 1), known as baryta or baryta-water, is one of the principal compounds of barium. This white granular monohydrate is the usual commercial form.
P ...
.
[Kirby et al., pp. 4–8] It is also more soluble than
actinium hydroxide
Actinium is a chemical element with the symbol Ac and atomic number 89. It was first isolated by Friedrich Oskar Giesel in 1902, who gave it the name ''emanium''; the element got its name by being wrongly identified with a substance And ...
and
thorium hydroxide
Thorium is a weakly radioactive metallic chemical element with the symbol Th and atomic number 90. Thorium is silvery and tarnishes black when it is exposed to air, forming thorium dioxide; it is moderately soft and malleable and has a high mel ...
: these three adjacent hydroxides may be separated by precipitating them with
ammonia
Ammonia is an inorganic compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula . A stable binary hydride, and the simplest pnictogen hydride, ammonia is a colourless gas with a distinct pungent smell. Biologically, it is a common nitrogenous was ...
.
Radium chloride
Radium chloride (RaCl2) is a salt of radium and chlorine, and the first radium compound isolated in a pure state. Marie Curie and André-Louis Debierne used it in their original separation of radium from barium. The first preparation of radium met ...
(RaCl
2) is a colorless, luminous compound. It becomes yellow after some time due to self-damage by the
alpha radiation
Alpha decay or α-decay is a type of radioactive decay in which an atomic nucleus emits an alpha particle (helium nucleus) and thereby transforms or 'decays' into a different atomic nucleus, with a mass number that is reduced by four and an atom ...
given off by radium when it decays. Small amounts of barium impurities give the compound a rose color.
It is soluble in water, though less so than
barium chloride
Barium chloride is an inorganic compound with the formula Ba Cl2. It is one of the most common water-soluble salts of barium. Like most other water-soluble barium salts, it is white, highly toxic, and imparts a yellow-green coloration to a flame. ...
, and its solubility decreases with increasing concentration of
hydrochloric acid
Hydrochloric acid, also known as muriatic acid, is an aqueous solution of hydrogen chloride. It is a colorless solution with a distinctive pungent smell. It is classified as a strong acid
Acid strength is the tendency of an acid, symbol ...
. Crystallization from aqueous solution gives the dihydrate RaCl
2·2H
2O, isomorphous with its barium analog.
Radium bromide
Radium bromide is the bromide salt of radium, with the formula RaBr2. It is produced during the process of separating radium from uranium ore. This inorganic compound was discovered by Pierre and Marie Curie in 1898, and the discovery sparked a hug ...
(RaBr
2) is also a colorless, luminous compound.
In water, it is more soluble than radium chloride. Like radium chloride, crystallization from aqueous solution gives the dihydrate RaBr
2·2H
2O, isomorphous with its barium analog. The ionizing radiation emitted by radium bromide excites
nitrogen
Nitrogen is the chemical element with the symbol N and atomic number 7. Nitrogen is a nonmetal and the lightest member of group 15 of the periodic table, often called the pnictogens. It is a common element in the universe, estimated at se ...
molecules in the air, making it glow. The
alpha particle
Alpha particles, also called alpha rays or alpha radiation, consist of two protons and two neutrons bound together into a particle identical to a helium-4 nucleus. They are generally produced in the process of alpha decay, but may also be produce ...
s emitted by radium quickly gain two electrons to become neutral
helium
Helium (from el, ἥλιος, helios, lit=sun) is a chemical element with the symbol He and atomic number 2. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas and the first in the noble gas group in the periodic table. ...
, which builds up inside and weakens radium bromide crystals. This effect sometimes causes the crystals to break or even explode.
Radium nitrate
Radium nitrate is a radioactive salt with the formula Ra(NO3)2. It is a white solid, but old samples appear yellowish-grey. It has a lower solubility than barium nitrate. It decomposes at 280 °C to radium oxide.
Production
Radium nitrate is prod ...
(Ra(NO
3)
2) is a white compound that can be made by dissolving
radium carbonate
Radium carbonate is a compound of radium, carbon, and oxygen. This salt is a poisonous, radioactive, Amorphous solid, amorphous, white powder that is used in medicine. It is notable for being more soluble than barium carbonate, unlike other Radium# ...
in
nitric acid
Nitric acid is the inorganic compound with the formula . It is a highly corrosive mineral acid. The compound is colorless, but older samples tend to be yellow cast due to decomposition into oxides of nitrogen. Most commercially available nitri ...
. As the concentration of nitric acid increases, the solubility of radium nitrate decreases, an important property for the chemical purification of radium.
Radium forms much the same insoluble salts as its lighter congener barium: it forms the insoluble
sulfate
The sulfate or sulphate ion is a polyatomic anion with the empirical formula . Salts, acid derivatives, and peroxides of sulfate are widely used in industry. Sulfates occur widely in everyday life. Sulfates are salts of sulfuric acid and many ar ...
(RaSO
4, the most insoluble known sulfate),
chromate (RaCrO
4),
carbonate
A carbonate is a salt of carbonic acid (H2CO3), characterized by the presence of the carbonate ion, a polyatomic ion with the formula . The word ''carbonate'' may also refer to a carbonate ester, an organic compound containing the carbonate g ...
(RaCO
3),
iodate
An iodate is the polyatomic anion with the formula . It is the most common form of iodine in nature, as it comprises the major iodine-containing ores. Iodate salts are often colorless. They are the salts of iodic acid.
Structure
Iodate is pyram ...
(Ra(IO
3)
2),
tetrafluoroberyllate
Tetrafluoroberyllate or orthofluoroberyllate is an anion containing beryllium and fluorine. The fluoroanion has a tetrahedral shape, with the four fluorine atoms surrounding a central beryllium atom. It has the same size and outer electron struct ...
(RaBeF
4), and nitrate (Ra(NO
3)
2). With the exception of the carbonate, all of these are less soluble in water than the corresponding barium salts, but they are all isostructural to their barium counterparts. Additionally,
radium phosphate
Radium is a chemical element with the 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 silvery-white, but it readily reacts with nitrogen (rather ...
,
oxalate
Oxalate (IUPAC: ethanedioate) is an anion with the formula C2O42−. This dianion is colorless. It occurs naturally, including in some foods. It forms a variety of salts, for example sodium oxalate (Na2C2O4), and several esters such as dimethyl o ...
, and
sulfite
Sulfites or sulphites are compounds that contain the sulfite ion (or the sulfate(IV) ion, from its correct systematic name), . The sulfite ion is the conjugate base of bisulfite. Although its acid ( sulfurous acid) is elusive, its salts are wide ...
are probably also insoluble, as they
coprecipitate with the corresponding insoluble barium salts.
[Kirby et al., pp. 8–9] The great insolubility of radium sulfate (at 20 °C, only 2.1
mg will dissolve in 1
kg of water) means that it is one of the less biologically dangerous radium compounds.
[Kirby et al., p. 12] The large ionic radius of Ra
2+ (148 pm) results in weak complexation and poor extraction of radium from aqueous solutions when not at high pH.
Occurrence
All isotopes of radium have half-lives much shorter than the
age of the Earth
The age of Earth is estimated to be 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years This age may represent the age of Earth's accretion, or core formation, or of the material from which Earth formed. This dating is based on evidence from radiometric age-dating of ...
, 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; since thorium and uranium have very long half-lives, these
daughters
A daughter is a female offspring; a girl or a woman in relation to her parents. Daughterhood is the state of being someone's daughter. The male counterpart is a son. Analogously the name is used in several areas to show relations between groups ...
are continually being regenerated by their decay.
Of these four isotopes, the longest-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, making up about one
part per trillion
In science and engineering, the parts-per notation is a set of pseudo-units to describe small values of miscellaneous dimensionless quantity, dimensionless quantities, e.g. mole fraction or mass fraction (chemistry), mass fraction. Since these f ...
of the Earth's crust; essentially all natural radium is
226Ra.
Thus, radium is found in tiny quantities in the uranium ore
uraninite
Uraninite, formerly pitchblende, is a radioactive, uranium-rich mineral and ore with a chemical composition that is largely UO2 but because of oxidation typically contains variable proportions of U3O8. Radioactive decay of the uranium causes t ...
and various other uranium
minerals
In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid chemical compound with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. (2 ...
, and in even tinier quantities in thorium minerals. One
ton
Ton is the name of any one of several units of measure. It has a long history and has acquired several meanings and uses.
Mainly it describes units of weight. Confusion can arise because ''ton'' can mean
* the long ton, which is 2,240 pounds
...
of
pitchblende
Uraninite, formerly pitchblende, is a radioactive, uranium-rich mineral and ore with a chemical composition that is largely UO2 but because of oxidation typically contains variable proportions of U3O8. Radioactive decay of the uranium causes th ...
typically yields about one seventh of a
gram
The gram (originally gramme; SI unit symbol g) is a Physical unit, unit of mass in the International System of Units (SI) equal to one one thousandth of a kilogram.
Originally defined as of 1795 as "the absolute weight of a volume of pure wate ...
of radium. One kilogram of the
Earth's crust
Earth's crust is Earth's thin outer shell of rock, referring to less than 1% of Earth's radius and volume. It is the top component of the lithosphere, a division of Earth's layers that includes the crust and the upper part of the mantle. The ...
contains about 900
picogram
To help compare different orders of magnitude, the following lists describe various mass levels between 10−59 kg and 1052 kg. The least massive thing listed here is a graviton, and the most massive thing is the observable universe. ...
s of radium, and one
liter
The litre (international spelling) or liter (American English spelling) (SI symbols L and l, other symbol used: ℓ) is a metric unit of volume. It is equal to 1 cubic decimetre (dm3), 1000 cubic centimetres (cm3) or 0.001 cubic metre (m3). ...
of
sea water
Seawater, or salt water, is water from a sea or ocean. On average, seawater in the world's oceans has a salinity of about 3.5% (35 g/L, 35 ppt, 600 mM). This means that every kilogram (roughly one liter by volume) of seawater has approx ...
contains about 89
femtogram
To help compare different Order of magnitude, orders of magnitude, the following lists describe various mass levels between 10−59 kilogram, kg and 1052 kg. The least massive thing listed here is a graviton, and the most massive thing ...
s of radium.
[Section 14, Geophysics, Astronomy, and Acoustics; Abundance of Elements in the Earth's Crust and in the Sea, in Lide, David R. (ed.), '']CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics
The ''CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics'' is a comprehensive one-volume reference resource for science research. First published in 1914, it is currently () in its 103rd edition, published in 2022. It is sometimes nicknamed the "Rubber Bible ...
, 85th Edition''. CRC Press. Boca Raton, Florida (2005).
History
![US radium standard 1927](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/US_radium_standard_1927.jpg)
Radium was
discovered by
Marie Skłodowska-Curie and her husband
Pierre Curie
Pierre Curie ( , ; 15 May 1859 – 19 April 1906) was a French physicist, a pioneer in crystallography, magnetism, piezoelectricity, and radioactivity. In 1903, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics with his wife, Marie Curie, and Henri Becqu ...
on 21 December 1898, in a
uraninite
Uraninite, formerly pitchblende, is a radioactive, uranium-rich mineral and ore with a chemical composition that is largely UO2 but because of oxidation typically contains variable proportions of U3O8. Radioactive decay of the uranium causes t ...
(pitchblende) sample from
Jáchymov
Jáchymov (); german: Sankt Joachimsthal or ''Joachimsthal'') is a spa town in Karlovy Vary District in the Karlovy Vary Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 2,300 inhabitants.
The historical core of the town from the 16th century is we ...
.
[Hammond, C. R. "Radium" in ] While studying the mineral earlier, the Curies removed uranium from it and found that the remaining material was still radioactive. In July 1898, while studying pitchblende, they isolated an element similar to
bismuth
Bismuth is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Bi and atomic number 83. It is a post-transition metal and one of the pnictogens, with chemical properties resembling its lighter group 15 siblings arsenic and antimony. Elemental ...
which turned out to be
polonium
Polonium is a chemical element with the symbol Po and atomic number 84. Polonium is a chalcogen. A rare and highly radioactive metal with no stable isotopes, polonium is chemically similar to selenium and tellurium, though its metallic character ...
. They then isolated a radioactive mixture consisting of two components: compounds of
barium
Barium is a chemical element with the symbol Ba and atomic number 56. It is the fifth element in group 2 and is a soft, silvery alkaline earth metal. Because of its high chemical reactivity, barium is never found in nature as a free element.
Th ...
, which gave a brilliant green flame color, and unknown radioactive compounds which gave
carmine
Carmine ()also called cochineal (when it is extracted from the cochineal insect), cochineal extract, crimson lake, or carmine lake is a pigment of a bright-red color obtained from the aluminium complex derived from carminic acid. Specific code n ...
spectral line
A spectral line is a dark or bright line in an otherwise uniform and continuous spectrum, resulting from emission or absorption of light in a narrow frequency range, compared with the nearby frequencies. Spectral lines are often used to iden ...
s that had never been documented before. The Curies found the radioactive compounds to be very similar to the barium compounds, except they were less soluble. This discovery made it possible for the Curies to isolate the radioactive compounds and discover a new element in them. The Curies announced their discovery to the
French Academy of Sciences
The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV of France, Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific me ...
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.
In September 1910, Marie Curie and
André-Louis Debierne
André-Louis Debierne (; 14 July 1874 – 31 August 1949) was a French chemist. He is often considered the discoverer of the element actinium, though H. W. Kirby disputes this and awards credit instead to German chemist Friedrich Oskar Giesel.
De ...
announced that they had isolated radium as a pure
metal
A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typicall ...
through the
electrolysis
In chemistry and manufacturing, electrolysis is a technique that uses direct electric current (DC) to drive an otherwise non-spontaneous chemical reaction. Electrolysis is commercially important as a stage in the separation of elements from n ...
of pure radium
chloride
The chloride ion is the anion (negatively charged ion) Cl−. It is formed when the element chlorine (a halogen) gains an electron or when a compound such as hydrogen chloride is dissolved in water or other polar solvents. Chloride salts ...
(RaCl
2) solution using a
mercury
Mercury commonly refers to:
* Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun
* Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg
* Mercury (mythology), a Roman god
Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to:
Companies
* Merc ...
cathode
A cathode is the electrode from which a conventional current leaves a polarized electrical device. This definition can be recalled by using the mnemonic ''CCD'' for ''Cathode Current Departs''. A conventional current describes the direction in whi ...
, producing radium–mercury
amalgam
Amalgam most commonly refers to:
* Amalgam (chemistry), mercury alloy
* Amalgam (dentistry), material of silver tooth fillings
** Bonded amalgam, used in dentistry
Amalgam may also refer to:
* Amalgam Comics, a publisher
* Amalgam Digital, an in ...
.
This amalgam was then heated in an atmosphere of
hydrogen
Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, an ...
gas to remove the mercury, leaving pure radium metal. Later that same year, E. Eoler isolated radium by
thermal decomposition
Thermal decomposition, or thermolysis, is a chemical decomposition caused by heat. The decomposition temperature of a substance is the temperature at which the substance chemically decomposes. The reaction is usually endothermic as heat is req ...
of its
azide
In chemistry, azide is a linear, polyatomic anion with the formula and structure . It is the conjugate base of hydrazoic acid . Organic azides are organic compounds with the formula , containing the azide functional group. The dominant applic ...
, Ra(N
3)
2.
Radium metal was first industrially produced at the beginning of the 20th century by
Biraco Biraco is the acronym of Bismuth, Radium, and Cobalt. It was the name of a now-defunct subsidiary company of Union Minière du Haut Katanga (UMHK) and Société Générale de Belgique created to refine these elements from the copper and uranium ore ...
, a subsidiary company of
Union Minière du Haut Katanga
Union commonly refers to:
* Trade union, an organization of workers
* Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets
Union may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Music
* Union (band), an American rock group
** ''Un ...
(UMHK) in its
Olen Olen may refer to:
Places
*Olen, Belgium, a municipality in the province of Antwerp, Belgium
* Olen, Russia, a village in Tula Oblast, Russia
*Ølen, a former municipality in the county of Rogaland, Norway
**Ølensjøen, a village formerly within t ...
plant in Belgium.
The general historical unit for radioactivity, the
curie
In computing, a CURIE (or ''Compact URI'') defines a generic, abbreviated syntax for expressing Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs). It is an abbreviated URI expressed in a compact syntax, and may be found in both XML and non-XML grammars. A CURIE ...
, is based on the radioactivity of
226Ra: it was originally defined as the radioactivity of one gram of radium-226, but the definition was later slightly refined to be .
Historical applications
Luminescent paint
![Radium 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Radium_2.jpg)
Radium was formerly used in
self-luminous
''Advaita Vedanta'' (; sa, अद्वैत वेदान्त, ) is a Hindu sādhanā, a path of spiritual discipline and experience, and the oldest extant tradition of the orthodox Hindu school Vedānta. The term ''Advaita'' (li ...
paints for watches, nuclear panels, aircraft switches, clocks, and instrument dials. A typical self-luminous watch that uses radium paint contains around 1 microgram of radium.
In the mid-1920s, a lawsuit was filed against the
United States Radium Corporation -
The United States Radium Corporation was a company, most notorious for its operations between the years 1917 to 1926 in Orange, New Jersey, in the United States that led to stronger worker protection laws. After initial success in developing a ...
by five dying "
Radium Girls
The Radium Girls were female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting watch dials with self-luminous paint. The incidents occurred at three different factories: one in Orange, New Jersey, beginning around 1917; one in Ott ...
" – dial painters who had painted radium-based
luminous paint
Luminous paint or luminescent paint is paint that exhibits luminescence. In other words, it gives off Visible spectrum, visible light through fluorescence, phosphorescence, or radioluminescence. There are three types of luminous paints: fluoresc ...
on the dials of watches and clocks. The dial painters were instructed to lick their brushes to give them a fine point, thereby ingesting radium.
Their exposure to radium caused serious health effects which included sores,
anemia
Anemia or anaemia (British English) is a blood disorder in which the blood has a reduced ability to carry oxygen due to a lower than normal number of red blood cells, or a reduction in the amount of hemoglobin. When anemia comes on slowly, th ...
, and
bone cancer
A bone tumor is an abnormal growth of tissue in bone, traditionally classified as noncancerous (benign) or cancerous (malignant). Cancerous bone tumors usually originate from a cancer in another part of the body such as from lung, breast, thyro ...
.
During the litigation, it was determined that the company's scientists and management had taken considerable precautions to protect themselves from the effects of radiation, but it did not seem to protect their employees. Additionally, for several years the companies had attempted to cover up the effects and avoid liability by insisting that the Radium Girls were instead suffering from
syphilis
Syphilis () is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium ''Treponema pallidum'' subspecies ''pallidum''. The signs and symptoms of syphilis vary depending in which of the four stages it presents (primary, secondary, latent, an ...
. This complete disregard for employee welfare had a significant impact on the formulation of
occupational disease
An occupational disease is any chronic ailment that occurs as a result of work or occupational activity. It is an aspect of occupational safety and health. An occupational disease is typically identified when it is shown that it is more prevalen ...
labor law
Labour laws (also known as labor laws or employment laws) are those that mediate the relationship between workers, employing entities, trade unions, and the government. Collective labour law relates to the tripartite relationship between employee, ...
.
As a result of the lawsuit, the adverse effects of radioactivity became widely known, and radium-dial painters were instructed in proper safety precautions and provided with protective gear. In particular, dial painters no longer licked paint brushes to shape them (which caused some ingestion of radium salts). Radium was still used in dials as late as the 1960s, but there were no further injuries to dial painters. This highlighted that the harm to the Radium Girls could easily have been avoided.
From the 1960s the use of radium paint was discontinued. In many cases luminous dials were implemented with non-radioactive fluorescent materials excited by light; such devices glow in the dark after exposure to light, but the glow fades.
Where long-lasting self-luminosity in darkness was required, safer radioactive
promethium
Promethium is a chemical element with the symbol Pm and atomic number 61. All of its isotopes are radioactive; it is extremely rare, with only about 500–600 grams naturally occurring in Earth's crust at any given time. Promethium is one of onl ...
-147 (half-life 2.6 years) or
tritium
Tritium ( or , ) or hydrogen-3 (symbol T or H) is a rare and radioactive isotope of hydrogen with half-life about 12 years. The nucleus of tritium (t, sometimes called a ''triton'') contains one proton and two neutrons, whereas the nucleus o ...
(half-life 12 years) paint was used; both continue to be used as of 2004. These had the added advantage of not degrading the phosphor over time, unlike radium. Tritium emits very low-energy
beta radiation
A beta particle, also called beta ray or beta radiation (symbol β), is a high-energy, high-speed electron or positron emitted by the radioactive decay of an atomic nucleus during the process of beta decay. There are two forms of beta decay, β ...
(even lower-energy than the beta radiation emitted by promethium) which cannot penetrate the skin, rather than the penetrating gamma radiation of radium, and is regarded as safer.
Clocks, watches, and instruments dating from the first half of the 20th century, often in military applications, may have been painted with radioactive luminous paint. They are usually no longer luminous; however, this is not due to radioactive decay of the radium (which has a half-life of 1600 years) but to the fluorescence of the zinc sulfide fluorescent medium being worn out by the radiation from the radium.
The appearance of an often thick layer of green or yellowish brown paint in devices from this period suggests a radioactive hazard. The radiation dose from an intact device is relatively low and usually not an acute risk; but the paint is dangerous if released and inhaled or ingested.
[Radium](_blank)
''Encyclopædia Britannica''
Commercial use
Radium was once an additive in products such as toothpaste, hair creams, and even food items due to its supposed curative powers. Such products soon fell out of vogue and were prohibited by authorities in many countries after it was discovered they could have serious adverse health effects. (See, for instance, ''
Radithor
Radithor was a patent medicine that is a well-known example of radioactive quackery and specifically of excessively broad and pseudoscientific application of the principle of radiation hormesis. It consisted of triple distilled water containing at ...
'' or ''
Revigator
The radium ore Revigator was a pseudoscientific medical device consisting of a ceramic water crock lined with radioactive materials. It was patented in 1912 by R. W. Thomas. Thomas was working at the time as a stock salesman in Arizona but, by 1 ...
'' types of "radium water" or "Standard Radium Solution for Drinking".)
Spas Spas or SPAS may refer to:
* Spa, a therapeutic water treatment
Geography
*Spas, Russia, several rural localities in Russia
* Spas, Lviv Raion, Lviv Oblast, a village in Lviv Raion in Lviv Oblast, Ukraine
* Spas, Sambir Raion, Lviv Oblast, a vil ...
featuring radium-rich water are still occasionally touted as beneficial, such as those in
Misasa, Tottori
is a town located in Tōhaku District, Tottori Prefecture, Japan. It is also home to the official treasure of Sanbutsu-ji, the Misasa Onsen, and Okayama Hospital.
The name "Misasa" (literally "three mornings") originates from the belief that on ...
, Japan. In the U.S., nasal radium irradiation was also administered to children to prevent middle-ear problems or enlarged tonsils from the late 1940s through the early 1970s.
Medical use
![Radior_cosmetics_containing_radium_1918](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Radior_cosmetics_containing_radium_1918.jpg)
Radium (usually in the form of
radium chloride
Radium chloride (RaCl2) is a salt of radium and chlorine, and the first radium compound isolated in a pure state. Marie Curie and André-Louis Debierne used it in their original separation of radium from barium. The first preparation of radium met ...
or
radium bromide
Radium bromide is the bromide salt of radium, with the formula RaBr2. It is produced during the process of separating radium from uranium ore. This inorganic compound was discovered by Pierre and Marie Curie in 1898, and the discovery sparked a hug ...
) was used in
medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...
to produce radon gas, which in turn was used as a
cancer
Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...
treatment; for example, several of these radon sources were used in Canada in the 1920s and 1930s.
However, many treatments that were used in the early 1900s are not used anymore because of the harmful effects radium bromide exposure caused. Some examples of these effects are
anaemia
Anemia or anaemia (British English) is a blood disorder in which the blood has a reduced ability to carry oxygen due to a lower than normal number of red blood cells, or a reduction in the amount of hemoglobin. When anemia comes on slowly, th ...
, cancer, and
genetic mutations
In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA or viral replication, mit ...
.
, safer gamma emitters such as
60Co, which is less costly and available in larger quantities, are usually used to replace the historical use of radium in this application.
Early in the 1900s, biologists used radium to induce mutations and study
genetics
Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wor ...
. As early as 1904, Daniel MacDougal used radium in an attempt to determine whether it could provoke sudden large mutations and cause major evolutionary shifts.
Thomas Hunt Morgan
Thomas Hunt Morgan (September 25, 1866 – December 4, 1945) was an American evolutionary biologist, geneticist, embryologist, and science author who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1933 for discoveries elucidating the role tha ...
used radium to induce changes resulting in white-eyed fruit flies.
Nobel-winning biologist
Hermann Muller briefly studied the effects of radium on fruit fly mutations before turning to more affordable x-ray experiments.
Howard Atwood Kelly
Howard Atwood Kelly (February 20, 1858 – January 12, 1943) was an American gynecologist. He obtained his B.A. degree and M.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He, William Osler, William Halsted, and William Welch together are known ...
, one of the founding physicians of
Johns Hopkins Hospital
The Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) is the teaching hospital and biomedical research facility of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. It was founded in 1889 using money from a bequest of over $7 million (1873 mo ...
, was a major pioneer in the medical use of radium to treat cancer. His first patient was his own aunt in 1904, who died shortly after surgery.
Kelly was known to use excessive amounts of radium to treat various cancers and tumors. As a result, some of his patients died from radium exposure.
His method of radium application was inserting a radium capsule near the affected area, then sewing the radium "points" directly to the
tumor
A neoplasm () is a type of abnormal and excessive growth of tissue. The process that occurs to form or produce a neoplasm is called neoplasia. The growth of a neoplasm is uncoordinated with that of the normal surrounding tissue, and persists ...
.
This was the same method used to treat
Henrietta Lacks
Henrietta Lacks (born Loretta Pleasant; August 1, 1920 – October 4, 1951) Note: Some sources report her birthday as August 2, 1920, vs. August 1, 1920. was an African-American woman whose cancer cells are the source of the HeLa cell line ...
, the host of the original
HeLa cells
HeLa (; also Hela or hela) is an immortalized cell line used in scientific research. It is the oldest and most commonly used human cell line. The line is derived from cervical cancer cells taken on February 8, 1951, named after Henrietta La ...
, for
cervical cancer
Cervical cancer is a cancer arising from the cervix. It is due to the abnormal growth of cells that have the ability to invade or spread to other parts of the body. Early on, typically no symptoms are seen. Later symptoms may include abnormal ...
.
As of 2015, safer and more available radioisotopes are used instead.
Production
![Památník objevu radia v Jáchymově](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/Pam%C3%A1tn%C3%ADk_objevu_radia_v_J%C3%A1chymov%C4%9B.jpg)
Uranium had no large scale application in the late 19th century and therefore no large uranium mines existed. In the beginning the only large source for uranium ore was the
silver
Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...
mines in
Jáchymov
Jáchymov (); german: Sankt Joachimsthal or ''Joachimsthal'') is a spa town in Karlovy Vary District in the Karlovy Vary Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 2,300 inhabitants.
The historical core of the town from the 16th century is we ...
,
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
(now
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...
).
The uranium ore was only a
byproduct
A by-product or byproduct is a secondary product derived from a production process, manufacturing process or chemical reaction; it is not the primary product or service being produced.
A by-product can be useful and marketable or it can be consid ...
of the mining activities.
In the first extraction of radium, Curie used the residues after extraction of uranium from pitchblende. The uranium had been extracted by dissolution in sulfuric acid leaving radium sulfate, which is similar to
barium sulfate
Barium sulfate (or sulphate) is the inorganic compound with the chemical formula Ba SO4. It is a white crystalline solid that is odorless and insoluble in water. It occurs as the mineral barite, which is the main commercial source of barium an ...
but even less soluble in the residues. The residues also contained rather substantial amounts of barium sulfate which thus acted as a carrier for the radium sulfate. The first steps of the radium extraction process involved boiling with sodium hydroxide, followed by
hydrochloric acid
Hydrochloric acid, also known as muriatic acid, is an aqueous solution of hydrogen chloride. It is a colorless solution with a distinctive pungent smell. It is classified as a strong acid
Acid strength is the tendency of an acid, symbol ...
treatment to minimize impurities of other compounds. The remaining residue was then treated with
sodium carbonate
Sodium carbonate, , (also known as washing soda, soda ash and soda crystals) is the inorganic compound with the formula Na2CO3 and its various hydrates. All forms are white, odourless, water-soluble salts that yield moderately alkaline solutions ...
to convert the barium sulfate into barium carbonate (carrying the radium), thus making it soluble in hydrochloric acid. After dissolution, the barium and radium were reprecipitated as sulfates; this was then repeated to further purify the mixed sulfate. Some impurities that form insoluble sulfides were removed by treating the chloride solution with hydrogen sulfide, followed by filtering. When the mixed sulfates were pure enough, they were once more converted to mixed chlorides; barium and radium thereafter were separated by
fractional crystallisation while monitoring the progress using a
spectroscope
An optical spectrometer (spectrophotometer, spectrograph or spectroscope) is an instrument used to measure properties of light over a specific portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, typically used in spectroscopic analysis to identify mate ...
(radium gives characteristic red lines in contrast to the green barium lines), and the
electroscope
The electroscope is an early scientific instrument used to detect the presence of electric charge on a body. It detects charge by the movement of a test object due to the Coulomb electrostatic force on it. The amount of charge on an object is ...
.
After the isolation of radium by Marie and Pierre Curie from uranium ore from
Jáchymov
Jáchymov (); german: Sankt Joachimsthal or ''Joachimsthal'') is a spa town in Karlovy Vary District in the Karlovy Vary Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 2,300 inhabitants.
The historical core of the town from the 16th century is we ...
, several scientists started to isolate radium in small quantities. Later, small companies purchased mine tailings from Jáchymov mines and started isolating radium. In 1904, the Austrian government
nationalised
Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...
the mines and stopped exporting raw ore. Until 1912 when radium production increased, radium availability was low.
The formation of an Austrian monopoly and the strong urge of other countries to have access to radium led to a worldwide search for uranium ores. The United States took over as leading producer in the early 1910s. The
Carnotite
Carnotite is a potassium uranium vanadate radioactive mineral with chemical formula K2( U O2)2( VO4)2·3 H2O. The water content can vary and small amounts of calcium, barium, magnesium, iron, and sodium are often present.
Occurrence
Carnotite i ...
sands in
Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...
provide some of the element, but richer ores are found in the
Congo and the area of the
Great Bear Lake
Great Bear Lake ( den, Sahtú; french: Grand lac de l'Ours) is a lake in the boreal forest of Canada. It is the largest lake entirely in Canada (Lake Superior and Lake Huron are larger but straddle the Canada–US border), the fourth-largest ...
and the
Great Slave Lake
Great Slave Lake (french: Grand lac des Esclaves), known traditionally as Tıdeè in Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì (Dogrib), Tinde’e in Wıìlıìdeh Yatii / Tetsǫ́t’ıné Yatıé (Dogrib / Chipewyan), Tu Nedhé in Dëne Sųłıné Yatıé (Chi ...
of northwestern Canada. Neither of the deposits is mined for radium but the uranium content makes mining profitable.
The Curies' process was still used for industrial radium extraction in 1940, but mixed bromides were then used for the fractionation. If the barium content of the uranium ore is not high enough it is easy to add some to carry the radium. These processes were applied to high grade uranium ores but may not work well with low grade ores.
Small amounts of radium were still extracted from uranium ore by this method of mixed precipitation and ion exchange as late as the 1990s,
[Greenwood and Earnshaw, pp. 109–110] but as of 2011 they are extracted only from spent nuclear fuel.
In 1954, the total worldwide supply of purified radium amounted to about
and it is still in this range in 2015, while the annual production of pure radium compounds is only about 100 g in total as of 1984.
The chief radium-producing countries are Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the United Kingdom, and Russia.
The amounts of radium produced were and are always relatively small; for example, in 1918, 13.6 g of radium were produced in the United States. The metal is isolated by reducing radium oxide with aluminium metal in a vacuum at 1200 °C.
Modern applications
![King Plot](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/King_Plot.png)
Radium is seeing increasing use in the field of
atomic, molecular, and optical physics
Atomic, molecular, and optical physics (AMO) is the study of matter-matter and light-matter interactions; at the scale of one or a few atoms and energy scales around several electron volts. The three areas are closely interrelated. AMO theory in ...
. Symmetry breaking forces scale proportional to
, which makes radium, the heaviest alkaline earth element, well suited for constraining new physics beyond the
standard model
The Standard Model of particle physics is the theory describing three of the four known fundamental forces (electromagnetism, electromagnetic, weak interaction, weak and strong interactions - excluding gravity) in the universe and classifying a ...
. Some radium isotopes, such as radium-225, have
octupole
A multipole expansion is a mathematical series representing a function that depends on angles—usually the two angles used in the spherical coordinate system (the polar and azimuthal angles) for three-dimensional Euclidean space, \R^3. Similarly t ...
deformed parity doublets that enhance sensitivity to
charge parity violating new physics by two to three orders of magnitude compared to
199Hg.
Radium is also promising for a trapped ion
optical clock
An atomic clock is a clock that measures time by monitoring the resonant frequency of atoms. It is based on atoms having different energy levels. Electron states in an atom are associated with different energy levels, and in transitions betwee ...
. The radium ion has two subhertz-linewidth transitions from the
ground state that could serve as the clock transition in an optical clock. Additionally, radium could be particularly well suited for a transportable optical clock as all transitions necessary for clock operation can be addressed with direct diode lasers.
Though radium has no stable isotopes, there are eleven radium isotopes with half-lives longer than one minute that could be compared with high precision on a King plot. Isotope shifts could be measured with high precision on either of the radium ion subhertz-linewidth transitions from the ground state, or on the
to
intercombination line in neutral radium. The degree of any potential nonlinearities in such a King plot could set bounds on new physics beyond the standard model.
Some of the few practical uses of radium are derived from its radioactive properties. More recently discovered
radioisotope
A radionuclide (radioactive nuclide, radioisotope or radioactive isotope) is a nuclide that has excess nuclear energy, making it unstable. This excess energy can be used in one of three ways: emitted from the nucleus as gamma radiation; transferr ...
s, such as
cobalt-60
Cobalt-60 (60Co) is a synthetic radioactive isotope of cobalt with a half-life of 5.2713 years. It is produced artificially in nuclear reactors. Deliberate industrial production depends on neutron activation of bulk samples of the monoisoto ...
and
caesium-137
Caesium-137 (), cesium-137 (US), or radiocaesium, is a radioactive isotope of caesium that is formed as one of the more common fission products by the nuclear fission of uranium-235 and other fissionable isotopes in nuclear reactors and nucl ...
, are replacing radium in even these limited uses because several of these isotopes are more powerful emitters, safer to handle, and available in more concentrated form.
The isotope
223Ra (the chloride is under the trade name
Xofigo
Radium-223 (223Ra, Ra-223) is an isotope of radium with an 11.4-day half-life. It was discovered in 1905 by T. Godlewski, a Polish chemist from Kraków, and was historically known as actinium X (AcX). Radium-223 dichloride is an alpha particle- ...
) was approved by the United States
Food and Drug Administration
The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is respon ...
in 2013 for use in
medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...
as a
cancer
Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...
treatment of bone
metastasis
Metastasis is a pathogenic agent's spread from an initial or primary site to a different or secondary site within the host's body; the term is typically used when referring to metastasis by a cancerous tumor. The newly pathological sites, then, ...
.
The main indication of treatment with Xofigo is the therapy of
bony metastases from castration-resistant prostate cancer due to the favourable characteristics of this alpha-emitter radiopharmaceutical.
225Ra has also been used in experiments concerning therapeutic irradiation, as it is the only reasonably long-lived radium isotope which does not have radon as one of its daughters.
Radium is still used in 2007 as a radiation source in some
industrial radiography
Industrial radiography is a modality of non-destructive testing that uses ionizing radiation to inspect materials and components with the objective of locating and quantifying defects and degradation in material properties that would lead to the f ...
devices to check for flawed metallic parts, similarly to
X-ray imaging
Radiography is an imaging technique using X-rays, gamma rays, or similar ionizing radiation and non-ionizing radiation to view the internal form of an object. Applications of radiography include medical radiography ("diagnostic" and "therapeut ...
.
When mixed with
beryllium
Beryllium is a chemical element with the symbol Be and atomic number 4. It is a steel-gray, strong, lightweight and brittle alkaline earth metal. It is a divalent element that occurs naturally only in combination with other elements to form mi ...
, radium acts as a
neutron source
A neutron source is any device that emits neutrons, irrespective of the mechanism used to produce the neutrons. Neutron sources are used in physics, engineering, medicine, nuclear weapons, petroleum exploration, biology, chemistry, and nuclear p ...
.
, radium-beryllium neutron sources are still sometimes used,
[Radium: Radiation Protection](_blank)
United States Environmental Protection Agency
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it be ...
but other materials such as
polonium
Polonium is a chemical element with the symbol Po and atomic number 84. Polonium is a chalcogen. A rare and highly radioactive metal with no stable isotopes, polonium is chemically similar to selenium and tellurium, though its metallic character ...
are more common: about 1500 polonium-beryllium neutron sources, with an individual activity of , have been used annually in
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
. These RaBeF
4-based (α, n) neutron sources have been deprecated despite the high number of neutrons they emit (1.84×10
6 neutrons per second) in favour of
241Am–Be sources.
, the isotope
226Ra is mainly used to form
227 Ac by
neutron irradiation
Neutron activation is the process in which neutron radiation induces radioactivity in materials, and occurs when atomic nuclei capture free neutrons, becoming heavier and entering excited states. The excited nucleus decays immediately by emittin ...
in a nuclear reactor.
Hazards
Radium is highly radioactive, and its immediate daughter,
radon
Radon is a chemical element with the symbol Rn and atomic number 86. It is a radioactive, colourless, odourless, tasteless noble gas. It occurs naturally in minute quantities as an intermediate step in the normal radioactive decay chains through ...
gas, is also radioactive. When ingested, 80% of the ingested radium leaves the body through the
feces
Feces ( or faeces), known colloquially and in slang as poo and poop, are the solid or semi-solid remains of food that was not digested in the small intestine, and has been broken down by bacteria in the large intestine. Feces contain a relati ...
, while the other 20% goes into the
bloodstream
The blood circulatory system is a system of organs that includes the heart, blood vessels, and blood which is circulated throughout the entire body of a human or other vertebrate. It includes the cardiovascular system, or vascular system, tha ...
, mostly accumulating in the bones. This is because the body treats radium as
calcium
Calcium is a chemical element with the symbol Ca and atomic number 20. As an alkaline earth metal, calcium is a reactive metal that forms a dark oxide-nitride layer when exposed to air. Its physical and chemical properties are most similar to ...
and
deposits it in the bones, where radioactivity degrades
marrow and can mutate
bone cells
An osteocyte, an oblate shaped type of bone cell with dendritic processes, is the most commonly found cell in mature bone. It can live as long as the organism itself. The adult human body has about 42 billion of them. Osteocytes do not divide and ...
. Exposure to radium, internal or external, can cause cancer and other disorders, because radium and radon emit alpha and
gamma ray
A gamma ray, also known as gamma radiation (symbol γ or \gamma), is a penetrating form of electromagnetic radiation arising from the radioactive decay of atomic nuclei. It consists of the shortest wavelength electromagnetic waves, typically ...
s upon their decay, which kill and mutate cells.
At the time of the
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...
in 1944, the "tolerance dose" for workers was set at 0.1 micrograms of ingested radium.
Some of the biological effects of radium include the first case of "radium-dermatitis", reported in 1900, two years after the element's discovery. The French physicist
Antoine Becquerel
Antoine Henri Becquerel (; 15 December 1852 – 25 August 1908) was a French engineer, physicist, Nobel laureate, and the first person to discover evidence of radioactivity. For work in this field he, along with Marie Skłodowska-Curie and Pi ...
carried a small ampoule of radium in his waistcoat pocket for six hours and reported that his skin became
ulcerated
An ulcer is a discontinuity or break in a bodily membrane that impedes normal function of the affected organ. According to Robbins's pathology, "ulcer is the breach of the continuity of skin, epithelium or mucous membrane caused by sloughing o ...
. Pierre and Marie Curie were so intrigued by radiation that they sacrificed their own health to learn more about it. Pierre Curie attached a tube filled with radium to his arm for ten hours, which resulted in the appearance of a skin lesion, suggesting the use of radium to attack cancerous tissue as it had attacked healthy tissue. Handling of radium has been blamed for Marie Curie's death due to
aplastic anemia
Aplastic anemia is a cancer in which the body fails to make blood cells in sufficient numbers. Blood cells are produced in the bone marrow by stem cells that reside there. Aplastic anemia causes a deficiency of all blood cell types: red blood ...
. A significant amount of radium's danger comes from its daughter radon: being a gas, it can enter the body far more readily than can its parent radium.
,
226Ra is considered to be the most toxic of the quantity radioelements, and it must be handled in tight glove boxes with significant airstream circulation that is then treated to avoid escape of its daughter
222Rn to the environment. Old ampoules containing radium solutions must be opened with care because radiolytic decomposition of water can produce an overpressure of hydrogen and oxygen gas.
The world's largest concentration of
226Ra is stored within the
Interim Waste Containment Structure, approximately north of
Niagara Falls, New York
Niagara Falls is a City (New York), city in Niagara County, New York, United States. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the city had a total population of 48,671. It is adjacent to the Niagara River, across from the city of Niagara ...
. The Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) for radium is 5pCi/L for drinking water, however, the OSHA doesn't set a exposure limit, as there is a radiation limit already set up.
[https://semspub.epa.gov/work/11/176334.pdf ]
See also
Notes
References
Bibliography
*
*
Further reading
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
*
Photos of Radium Water Bath in OklahomaNLM Hazardous Substances Databank – Radium, RadioactiveAnnotated bibliography for radium from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
at ''
The Periodic Table of Videos
''Periodic Videos'' (also known as ''The Periodic Table of Videos'') is a video project and YouTube channel on chemistry. It consists of a series of videos about chemical elements and the periodic table, with additional videos on other topics i ...
'' (University of Nottingham)
{{Authority control
Chemical elements
Alkaline earth metals
Chemical elements with body-centered cubic structure
Marie Curie
Pierre Curie