Using a brand-new method, scientists have created a groundbreaking study that reveals important chemical features of radioactive promethium, a rare earth element.
It's been almost eight decades since the element was first identified. This finding is a big step in understanding this mysterious substance.
(Photo: Unsplash/ Dan Farrell )
A Big Step Forward in Purity and Analysis
Scientists have been confused for a long time about promethium, one of the 15 lanthanide elements because it is hard to find and unstable. Even though scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) found it in 1945, they still needed to learn more about its science. To date, promethium has only been used in atomic batteries and some types of cancer tests because scientists have had a hard time studying it properly.
Alexander Ivanov, a scientist at ORNL, highlighted the challenges of studying promethium. According to him, all isotopes of promethium are radioactive and unstable, transforming them into other elements over time.
This feature makes promethium uncommon and challenging to investigate. But ORNL has created a unique way to recover promethium-147 from nuclear reactor trash. Significantly, ORNL is the sole facility in the United States that can generate this 2.6-year-half-life isotope.
Scientists may now learn more about the characteristics of promethium-147 because this technique yielded the purest sample of the element ever identified. The group combined a ligand created explicitly for this pure sample to form a stable promethium complex in water. The metal atoms were trapped by this ligand, PyDGA, which formed nine promethium-oxygen links.
Because promethium is radioactive, the study was difficult. The element breaks down into samarium, which could cause pollution. The group solved this problem using synchrotron-based X-ray absorption spectroscopy, a very specialized method.
A particle accelerator sent out high-energy photons to map out where atoms were and measure the lengths of their bonds. The team was able to separate the promethium-oxygen bonds from any samarium that might have been there by focusing on small changes in bond lengths. This careful method made it possible to compare promethium's qualities with those of other rare earth elements, which was the last piece missing from the lanthanide puzzle.
Anil Popovs, a study contributor, indicated that promethium was the final element needed to complete their research among the lanthanides. He said the ligand enabled all the lanthanides to create a stable complex, making it easier to study these complexes' basic chemical and physical properties across the whole series. He stressed that knowing how promethium reacts with other lanthanides makes it easier to separate and opens the door to new uses.
Future Studies and Uses
Lanthanides are usually mixed up, and it's important to understand long-term patterns like bond lengths and how complexes form to develop new ways to separate them. The team at ORNL is now looking at promethium in water to learn more about how it reacts with chemicals. After these basic results are made public, more research into the uses of promethium will likely be conducted.
One of the scientists, Anil Popovs, hoped their basic knowledge could help other scientists make better separation technologies. He also thinks this will make people want to learn more about promethium.
Scientists are still working hard to understand the periodic table fully, and this finding shows how important that work is. The periodic table is ancient, but it still holds secrets. Elements like Promethium are only now starting to show how complicated they are.
Scientists are still looking into these hidden qualities, but the periodic table is an excellent example of how curious and creative people can be. Understanding how promethium reacts with other chemicals can help us learn more about the elements and could also be used in technology.
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