Radium

88 francium ← radium → actinium Ba ↑ Ra ↓ Ubn Periodic Table - Extended Periodic Table
General
Name, Symbol, Number	radium, Ra, 88
Chemical series	alkaline earth metals
Group, Period, Block	2, 7, s
Appearance	silvery white metallic
Atomic mass	(226) g/mol
Electron configuration	[Rn] 7s2
Electrons per shell	2, 8, 18, 32, 18, 8, 2
Physical properties
Phase	solid
Density (near r.t.)	5.5 g·cm−3
Melting point	973 K (700 °C, 1292 °F)
Boiling point	2010 K (1737 °C, 3159 °F)
Heat of fusion	8.5 kJ·mol−1
Heat of vaporization	113 kJ·mol−1
Vapor pressure P/Pa 1 10 100 1 k 10 k 100 k at T/K 819 906 1037 1209 1446 1799
Atomic properties
Crystal structure	cubic body centered
Oxidation states	2 (strongly basic oxide)
Electronegativity	0.9 (Pauling scale)
Ionization energies	1st: 509.3 kJ/mol
	2nd: 979.0 kJ/mol
Atomic radius	215 pm
Miscellaneous
Magnetic ordering	nonmagnetic
Electrical resistivity	(20 °C) 1 µΩ·m
Thermal conductivity	(300 K) 18.6 W·m−1·K−1
CAS registry number	7440-14-4
Selected isotopes
Main article: Isotopes of radium iso NA half-life DM DE (MeV) DP 223Ra  ? 11.43 d alpha 5.99 219Rn 224Ra  ? 3.6319 d alpha 5.789 220Rn 226Ra trace 1602 y alpha 4.871 222Rn 228Ra syn 6.7 y beta- 0.046 228Ac
References

Radium (IPA: /ˈreɪdiəm/) is a chemical element, which has the symbol Ra and atomic number 88 (see the periodic table). Its appearance is almost pure white, but it readily oxidizes on exposure to air, turning black. Radium is an alkaline earth metal that is found in trace amounts in uranium ores. It is extremely radioactive. Its most stable isotope, ²²⁶Ra, has a half-life of 1602 years and decays into radon gas.

Notable characteristics

The heaviest of the alkaline earth metals, radium is intensely radioactive and resembles barium in its chemical behavior. This metal is found in minute quantities in the uranium ore pitchblende, and various other uranium minerals. Radium preparations are remarkable for maintaining themselves at a higher temperature than their surroundings, and for their radiations, which are of three kinds: alpha particles, beta particles, and gamma rays. Radium also produces neutrons when mixed with beryllium.

When freshly prepared, pure radium metal is brilliant white, but blackens when exposed to air (probably due to nitride formation). Radium is luminescent (giving a faint blue color), reacts violently with water to form radium hydroxide and is slightly more volatile than barium.

Applications

Some of the practical uses of radium are derived from its radiative properties. More recently discovered radioisotopes, such as ⁶⁰Co and ¹³⁷Cs, are replacing radium in even these limited uses because several of these are much more powerful and others are safer to handle.

• Formerly used in self-luminous paints for watches, aircraft switches, clocks, and instrument dials. More than 100 former watch dial painters who used their lips to shape the paintbrush died from the radiation. Soon afterward, the adverse effects of radioactivity became widely known. Radium was still used in dials as late as the 1950's. Objects painted with this paint may still be dangerous, and must be handled properly. Although tritium's beta radiation is potentially dangerous if ingested, it has replaced radium in these applications.
• When mixed with beryllium it is a neutron source for physics experiments.
• Radium (usually in the form of radium chloride) is used in medicine to produce radon gas which in turn is used as a cancer treatment.
• Radium was also put in many foods for taste and as a preservative, but also exposed many people to radiation.
• ²²³Ra is currently under investigation for use in medicine as cancer treatment of bone metastasis.
• One unit for radioactivity, the non-SI curie, is based on the radioactivity of ²²⁶Ra (see Radioactivity).
• At the turn of the 20th century radium was a popular additive in products like 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 real and serious adverse health effects. (See for instance Radithor.)
• Spas featuring radium-rich water are still occasionally touted as beneficial, such as those in Misasa, Tottori, Japan.

History

Radium (Latin radius, ray) was discovered by Maria Skłodowska-Curie and her husband Pierre in 1898 in pitchblende/uraninite from North Bohemia (area around Jáchymov). While studying pitchblende the Curies removed uranium from it and found that the remaining material was still radioactive. They then separated out a radioactive mixture mostly consisting of barium which gave a brilliant red flame color and spectral lines which had never been documented before. In 1902 radium was isolated into its pure metal by Curie and André-Louis Debierne through the electrolysis of a pure radium chloride solution by using a mercury cathode and distilling in an atmosphere of hydrogen gas.

Historically the decay products of radium were known as Radium A, B, C, etc. These are now known to be isotopes of other elements as follows:

On February 4, 1936 radium E became the first radioactive element to be made synthetically.

During the 1930s it was found that workers exposure to radium by handling luminescent paints caused serious health effects which included sores, anemia and bone cancer. This use of radium was stopped soon afterward. This is because radium is treated as calcium by the body, and deposited in the bones, where radioactivity degrades marrow, and can mutate bone cells. Handling of radium has since been blamed for Marie Curie's premature death.

Occurrence

Radium is a decay product of uranium and is therefore found in all uranium-bearing ores. Radium was originally acquired from pitchblende ore from Joachimsthal, Bohemia (One metric ton of pitchblende yields 0.0001 grams of radium). Carnotite sands in Colorado provide some of the element, but richer ores are found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Great Lakes area of Canada and can also be extracted from uranium processing waste. Large uranium deposits are located in Ontario, New Mexico, Utah, Virginia, Australia, and in other places.

Compounds

Its compounds color flames crimson carmine (rich red or crimson color with a shade of purple) and give a characteristic spectrum. Due to its geologically short half life and intense radioactivity, radium compounds are quite rare, occurring almost exclusively in uranium ores.

• radium fluoride (RaF₂)
• radium chloride (RaCl₂)
• radium bromide (RaBr₂)
• radium iodide (RaI₂)
• radium oxide (RaO)

See also radium compounds.

Isotopes

Radium has 25 different known isotopes, four of which are found in nature, with ²²⁶Ra being the most common. ²²³Ra, ²²⁴Ra, ²²⁶Ra and ²²⁸Ra are all generated in the decay of either U or Th. ²²⁶Ra is a product of ²³⁸U decay, and is the longest-lived isotope of radium with a half-life of 1602 years; next longest is ²²⁸Ra, a product of ²³²Th breakdown, with a half-life of 6.7 years.

Radioactivity

Radium is over one million times more radioactive than the same mass of uranium. Its decay occurs in at least seven stages; the successive main products have been studied and were called radium emanation or exradio (this is radon), radium A (polonium), radium B (lead), radium C (bismuth), etc. The radon is a heavy gas and the later products are solids. These products are themselves radioactive elements, each with an atomic weight a little lower than its predecessor.

Radium loses about 1% of its activity in 25 years, being transformed into elements of lower atomic weight with lead being a final product of disintegration.

The SI unit of radioactivity is the becquerel (Bq), equal to one disintegration per second. The curie is a non-SI unit defined as that amount of radioactivity which has the same disintegration rate as 1 gram of Ra-226 (3.7 x 10¹⁰ disintegrations per second, or 37 GBq).

Precautions

Radium is highly radioactive and its decay product, radon gas, is also radioactive. Since radium is chemically similar to calcium, it has the potential to cause great harm by replacing it in bones. Inhalation, injection, ingestion or body exposure to radium can cause cancer and other disorders. Stored radium should be ventilated to prevent accumulation of radon.

Emitted energy from the decay of radium ionizes gases, affects photographic plates, causes sores on the skin, and produces many other detrimental effects.

Further reading

• Scientific American (Macklis RM, The great radium scandal. Sci.Am. 1993 Aug: 269(2):94-99)
• Clark, Claudia. (1987). Radium Girls: Women and Industrial Health Reform, 1910-1935. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-4640-6.
• Ken Silverstein, Harper's Magazine, November 1998; The radioactive boy scout: when a teenager attempts to build a breeder reactor - case of David Hahn who managed to secure materials and equipment from businesses and information from government officials to develop an atomic energy radiation project for his Boy Scout merit-badge.
• Decay chains (with some examples including Radium)

References

• Guide to the Elements - Revised Edition, Albert Stwertka, (Oxford University Press; 1998) ISBN 0-19-508083-1
• Los Alamos National Laboratory - Radium
• A Glow in the Dark, and a Lesson in Scientific Peril

External links

• WebElements.com - Radium (also used as a reference)
• Lateral Science - Radium Discovery
• Photos of Radium Water Bath in Oklahoma
• NLM Hazardous Substances Databank – Radium, Radioactive

• Link page to external chemical sources.