Curium is a transuranic, radioactive chemical element with the symbol Cm and atomic number 96.
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21 Facts About Curium
2.
Curium was first intentionally made by the team of Glenn T Seaborg, Ralph A James, and Albert Ghiorso in 1944, using the cyclotron at Berkeley.
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3.
Curium is a hard, dense, silvery metal with a high melting and boiling point for an actinide.
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4.
Curium is used in making heavier actinides and the Pu radionuclide for power sources in cardiac pacemakers and RTGs for spacecraft.
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5.
Curium was chemically identified at the Metallurgical Laboratory, University of Chicago.
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Chicago6.
Curium-242 was made in July–August 1944 by bombarding Pu with a-particles to produce curium with the release of a neutron:.
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7.
Curium-242 was unambiguously identified by the characteristic energy of the a-particles emitted during the decay:.
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8.
Curium metal was produced only in 1951 by reduction of CmF3 with barium.
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9.
Curium's resistivity is similar to that of gadolinium, and the actinides plutonium and neptunium, but significantly higher than that of americium, uranium, polonium and thorium.
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10.
Curium ions are hard Lewis acids and thus form most stable complexes with hard bases.
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11.
Curium-250 is unusual: it mostly decays by spontaneous fission.
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12.
Curium is not currently used as nuclear fuel due to its low availability and high price.
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13.
Curium-243 is not suitable for such, due to its short half-life and strong a emission, which would cause excessive heat.
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14.
Curium is made artificially in small amounts for research purposes.
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15.
Curium is present in nature in some areas used for nuclear weapons testing.
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16.
Curium is made in small amounts in nuclear reactors, and by now only kilograms of Cm and Cm have been accumulated, and grams or even milligrams for heavier isotopes.
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17.
Curium-248 is favored for research purposes due to its long half-life.
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18.
Curium readily reacts with oxygen forming mostly Cm2O3 and CmO2 oxides, but the divalent oxide CmO is known.
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19.
Curium is a common starting material for making higher transuranic and superheavy elements.
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20.
Curium is absorbed in the body much more strongly via inhalation, and the allowed total dose of Cm in soluble form is 0.
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21.
Curium isotopes are inevitably present in spent nuclear fuel .
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