|
91. ProtactiniumName: Protactinium
Protactinium has a bright metallic lustre which it retains for some time in air. The element is superconductive below 1.4 K. The element is a dangerous toxic material and requires precautions similar to those used when handling plutonium. Protactinium is one of the rarest and most expensive naturally occurring elements. The element is an α-emitter and is a radiological hazard similar to polonium. Protactinium is a highly toxic and radioactive rare earth metal that requires special handling. It is found in pitchblende and ores form Zaire and is one of the rarest and most expensive naturally occurring elements. Protactinium does not play any biological role. Protactinium was first identified in 1913, when Kasimir Fajans and O. H. Gohring encountered short-lived isotope 234m-Pa, with a half-life of about 1.17 minutes, during their studies of the decay chain of 238-U. They gave the new element the name Brevium (Latin brevis, brief, short); the name was changed to Protoactinium in 1918 when two groups of scientists (Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner of Germany and Frederick Soddy and John Cranston of the UK) independently discovered 231-Pa, and shortened to Protactinium in 1949. Aristid V. Grosse prepared 2 mg of Pa2O5 in 1927, and later on managed to isolate Protactinium for the first time in 1934 from 0.1 mg of Pa2O5, first converting the oxide to an iodide and then cracking it in a high vacuum by an electrically heated filament by the reaction 2PaI5 → 2Pa + 5I2. In 1961, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority was able to produce 125 g of 99.9% pure protactinium, processing 60 tons of waste material in a 12-stage process and spending 500,000 USD; this was the world's only supply of the element for many years to come, and it is reported that the metal was sold to laboratories for a cost of 2,800 USD / g in the following years. Quick links
|