Chemistry of berkelium: a review

Conference · Tue Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1985

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-5088(86)90582-5· OSTI ID:5273832

Hobart, D E; Peterson, J R

Element 97 was first produced in December 1949, by the bombardment of americium-241 with accelerated alpha particles. This new element was named berkelium (Bk) after Berkeley, California, the city of its discovery (Thompson, Ghiorso, and Seaborg, Phys. Rev. 77, 838 (1950); 80, 781 (1950)). In the 36 years since the discovery of Bk, a substantial amount of knowledge concerning the physicochemical properties of this relatively scarce transplutonium element has been acquired. All of the Bk isotopes of mass numbers 240 and 242 through 251 are presently known, but only berkelium-249 (..beta../sup -/ decay, 0.125 MeV, t/sub 1/2/ = 325 days) is available in sufficient quantities for bulk chemical studies. About 0.7 gram of this isotope has been isolated at the HFIR/TRU Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee in the last 18 years. Over the same time period, the scale of experimental work using berkelium-249 has increased from the tracer level to bulk studies at the microgram level to solution and solid state investigations with milligram quantities. Extended knowledge of the physicochemical behavior of berkelium is important in its own right, because Bk is the first member of the second half of the actinide series. In addition, such information should enable more accurate extrapolations to the predicted behavior of heavier elements for which experimental studies are severely limited by lack of material and/or by intense radioactivity.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Lab., NM (USA); Tennessee Univ., Knoxville (USA). Dept. of Chemistry; Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: AS05-76ER04447; AC05-84OR21400; W-7405-ENG-36
• OSTI ID: 5273832
• Report Number(s): LA-UR-85-3112; CONF-8509147-2; ON: DE85017523
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

38 RADIATION CHEMISTRY, RADIOCHEMISTRY, AND NUCLEAR CHEMISTRY
400702* -- Radiochemistry & Nuclear Chemistry-- Properties of Radioactive Materials
ACTINIDE ISOTOPES
ACTINIDES
BERKELIUM
BERKELIUM ISOTOPES
CHEMISTRY
DOCUMENT TYPES
ELEMENTS
ISOTOPES
METALS
REVIEWS
TRANSPLUTONIUM ELEMENTS
TRANSURANIUM ELEMENTS