Table of Contents
When has curium been used?
Although curium has little use outside of research, 242Cm (half-life 163 days) has been used in isotopic power generators, as it produces about 3 watts of heat energy per gram due to its radioactive decay . Curium-245 (245Cm, half-life 8,500 years) is fissionable , and can be used as nuclear reactor fuel enrichment.
Where is curium typically found?
Curium in the skeleton is deposited mainly on the endosteal surfaces of mineral bone and only slowly redistributes throughout the bone volume.
How is curium-244 used?
Curium-244 is one of the most attractive radioactive heat source materials. It scores high with respect to power density, availability, and physical and chemical properties. It is expected to be less costly than 238 Pu which is presently used in aerospace isotopic power generators.
What is plutonium used for?
A radioactive, silvery metal. Plutonium was used in several of the first atomic bombs, and is still used in nuclear weapons. The complete detonation of a kilogram of plutonium produces an explosion equivalent to over 10,000 tonnes of chemical explosive.
Is curium a naturally occurring element?
Curium is a member of a group of elements, the transuranic elements, that – with the exception of plutonium and neptunium – do not occur naturally on Earth. Curium is a hard, brittle, silvery radioactive metal that tarnishes slowly and which can only be produced in nuclear reactors.
Is curium an element?
96
Curium/Atomic number
curium (Cm), synthetic chemical element of the actinoid series of the periodic table, atomic number 96. Unknown in nature, curium (as the isotope curium-242) was discovered (summer 1944) at the University of Chicago by American chemists Glenn T. Seaborg, Ralph A.
What elements does curium bond with?
Named after Pierre and Marie Curie, curium is a silvery, radioactive metal. It is a chemically active metal, reacting with air, water and acids but not bases.
How is curium formed in the universe?
Most curium is produced by bombarding uranium or plutonium with neutrons in nuclear reactors – one tonne of spent nuclear fuel contains about 20 grams of curium. Curium is a hard, dense, silvery metal with a relatively high melting point and boiling point for an actinide.
What kind of element is the element curium?
Curium is a synthetic transuranic element produced and identified in 1944 by group of Glenn.
How is curium used in the real world?
Curium is used to produce heaver actinides. Pu-238 is also produced from curium which in turn is used to make artificial pace makers [3]. Because of its high radioactivity curium should be handled with care. Curium if consumed or inhaled can eventually accumulate in bones, liver and lungs where its radioactive decay will cause cancer in human body.
Who was the first person to make curium?
Curium was first produced by Glenn T. Seaborg, Ralph A. James and Albert Ghiorso, working at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1944. They bombarded atoms of plutonium-239, an isotope of plutonium, with alpha particles that had been accelerated in a device called a cyclotron. This produced atoms of curium-242 and one free neutron.
How is curium produced in a nuclear reactor?
Curium is a hard, brittle, silvery radioactive metal that tarnishes slowly and which can only be produced in nuclear reactors. The isotope 242Cu was produced in 1944 by Glenn T Seaborg, Ralph A James and Albert Ghioso by bombarding 239Pu with alpha particles in the 60-inch Cyclotron at Berkeley University in the US.