Moreover, radium is the first radioactive element made synthetically.The time reached by the concentration of radium to decrease by half is one thousand six hundred years then decays into radon gas this is why there is no large deposits of radium.The gas is colorless and odorless noble gas and is considered a health hazard as showed in studies linking breathing in high concentration of contaminated atmospheric gas with radon to incidence of lung cancer.Ĩ.It is part of a decay chain from radon to polonium and lead.Ironically, radium is use in cancer treatment using its isotopes ionizing radiation taking effect on biological level in radiotherapy.For employees’ welfare, formulation of occupational disease labor law commences especially to work-related exposure to harmful and toxic substances.It was discovered back in 1930s that exposure of workers to paints (luminescent paints) could cause serious illness such as bone cancer, sores and anemia that eventually banned the use of radium.It is highly radioactive hence carcinogenic.Radioactivity of radium (and other substances) is measured in Becquerel.This metal and its compounds glow in the dark due to emission of light rays.Radium is present in all uranium minerals.It is a million time as radioactive as Uranium (a very heavy metal sometimes used as a source of concentrated energy).It produces a red colored fire when exposed to flame.It easily tarnishes and blackens due to nitride formation when exposed to air (from reaction with nitrogen).Compared to barium, radium’s reaction with water is less unstable.It reacts readily with water (reaction is quicker compared to other alkaline earth metal) that produces radium hydroxide as well as hydrogen gas.Atomic number of eighty eight, density of 5.5 g cm–3, melting point at seven hundred degrees celsius and boiling at 1737 degrees celsius.Radium appears silvery and brilliant white in its purest form.Radium is the heaviest among alkaline earth metal. Pitchblende is made up of thirty different elements where curie performs different methods of chemical analysis to isolate and separate each kind of elements present in pitchblende.ģ. Complex mineral called pitchblende (known by the name of uraninite formed through oxidation of the element uranium) was the sample used in the discovery of radium.It was discovered in 1898 by Pierre and Marie Curie wherein the latter eventually died of overexposure to radiation.
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