To reveal the secrets of Marie Curie's element, and that's polonium, here's Johnny Ball. Polonium, element 84 , was discovered in and named after Poland, the homeland of Marie Curie Ne Sklodowska who found it with her husband Pierre Curie.
This loyalty was a direct affront to Russia who had dominated Poland for so long. The only way she could become educated whilst a teenager, was by risking imprisonment by the Russians by attending secret underground schools, which had to change locations every couple of days. It was only by escaping to Paris, following her older brother and sister, that she was able to forge a career.
She was so poor in the early years in Paris, that she sometimes fainted through lack of food. Still she worked tirelessly. In she met Pierre, who had made a name for himself in discovering piezoelectricity and was one of her lecturers. They married in July She wore a black dress as it would be serviceable for her work in the laboratory. They did not exchange rings, but bought each other a bicycle, on which they honeymooned.
Working with him 98 , Marie coined the phrase "radioactivity" and decided to make this here object of study, because no one else was doing it. They realised that radiation was coming from the very atoms and that this was a sign of the atoms breaking up. Only by studying the break up of atoms through radiation, were scientists able to clearly understand how atoms are made up. Pierre died in a tragic accident in In driving rain he seemed to walk in front of a large horse-drawn wagon, and a wheel shattered his head.
Some think the pain he was in as a result of radiation burns and sickness may have caused his lack of awareness. Marie was devastated, but her work continued. For discovering polonium and radium, she received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in , becoming the only woman ever to receive two such prizes. However, there was still more success due for the family. Her daughter Irene also became a scientist, and in , Marie saw Irene and her husband Frederick Joliot-Curie produce the first ever artificial radioactive element.
This led to our modern ability to manipulate almost every element for our specific scientific needs. Irene and Frederick also received the Nobel Prize in , but sadly Marie had now died. Natural polonium, Po, is still very rare and forms no more than billions of a gram per ton of uranium ore. Because it is so rare, polonium is made by first making bismuth also found in pitchblende. Bismuth is found and then artificially changed to bismuth which then decays to form polonium This process requires a nuclear reactor, so it is not an easy element to source.
It was a shocking discovery that the former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned with this very radioactive element. The alpha particles it emits are so weakly penetrating it could easily have been carried in a simple sealed container, and would have to be ingested, for example in a cup of tea, to do any serious harm. However, once inside the body, as it continued to disintegrate, it would become fatal.
Polonium has a position in the periodic table that could make it a metal, a metalloid or a nonmetal. It is classed as a metal as its electrical conductivity decreases as its temperature rises. Because of this property it is used in industry to eliminate dangerous static electricity in making paper or sheet metal.
Because of its short half life, its decay generates considerable heat W per gram of metal. It can be used as a convenient and very light heat source to generate reliable thermoelectric power in space satellites and lunar stations, as no moving parts are involved. Johnny Ball lifting the lid on the radioactive element polonium discovered by Marie Curie and her husband Pierre.
Next time on Chemistry in its element we remain radioactive much like the substance itself with earth scientist Ian Farnan. Anyone familiar with the iconic image of the mushroom cloud understands the tremendous explosive power of a correctly controlled detonation of plutonium.
The energy density is mind-boggling: a sphere of metal 10 cm in diameter and weighing just 8 kg is enough to produce an explosion at least as big as the one that devastated Nagasaki in Ian Farnan with what promises to be an explosive edition of Chemistry in its element next week.
I'm Chris Smith, thank you for listening and see you next time. Chemistry in its element is brought to you by the Royal Society of Chemistry and produced by thenakedscientists. There's more information and other episodes of Chemistry in its element on our website at chemistryworld. Click here to view videos about Polonium. View videos about. Help Text.
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Discovered by. Origin of the name. Polonium is named after Poland, the native country of Marie Curie, who first isolated the element. Melting point. Experts say that to poison someone, much larger amounts would be required and this would have to be man-made, perhaps from a particle accelerator or a nuclear reactor. Although it occurs naturally in the environment, acquiring enough of it to kill would require individuals with expertise and connections.
It would also need sophisticated lab facilities - and access to a nuclear reactor. Only around g of polonium is made in nuclear reactors each year around the world. Alternatively, it could have been obtained from a commercial supplier but this would be near impossible without arousing suspicion.
Polonium can either be extracted from rocks containing radioactive uranium or separated chemically from the substance radium Production of polonium from radium would need sophisticated lab facilities because the latter substance produces dangerous levels of penetrating radiation. Because the alpha particles emitted by polonium cannot travel through skin or paper, it would be easy to smuggle a tiny amount into the country in a glass vial.
The substance is also very difficult to detect - in hospital tests and airport scanners - because it emits hardly any gamma radiation, which is what Geiger counters look for. Polonium has no colour or taste, so could be easily added to food or drink, and when it decays inside the body it continues to cause damage for several weeks or longer.
It is a slow and silent killer that attacks the red blood cells followed by the liver, kidneys, spleen, bone marrow, gastrointestinal tract and central nervous system. But, on the other hand, polonium does leave traces and can help police to locate those using it by following a trail of contaminated locations.
The daughter of Marie Curie died of leukaemia in and the disease was linked to a laboratory accident that occurred more than a decade before, when a sealed capsule of polonium exploded. A deadly trail of polonium. Who was Alexander Litvinenko? Cigarettes and other tobacco-containing products also have low levels of radioactive polonium. Researchers from the University of California at Los Angeles recently found that tobacco companies knew about the radioactivity as early as The scientists calculated that this radioactivity, which can cause cancer, is responsible for up to deaths for every 1, smokers over a period of 25 years.
If polonium is ingested, 50 percent to 90 percent of the element leaves the body through feces. The rest is deposited mostly in the kidneys, liver and spleen; because it is radioactive, the amount of the element decreases by half every 50 days. The effects of inhaled polonium are localized in the lungs.
Smokers have about twice as much polonium in their ribs as non-smokers. It is thought that this incident may have been responsible for her death, 10 years later, of leukemia. Sarah Zielinski is an award-winning science writer and editor.
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