 Discovery Information
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| Who: Andre Debierne |
| When: 1899 |
| Where: France |
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| Name Origin
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| Greek: aktinos (beam or ray). |
| "Actinium" in different languages. |
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| Sources
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| Extremely rare, found in all uranium ores. One ton of uranium contains about one tenth of a gram of actinium. Usually obtained by treating radium with neutrons in a reactor.
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| Uses
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| Used as a source of neutrons and for thermoelectric power. It has no other significant industrial applications.
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| History
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| Actinium was discovered in 1899 by Andre-Louis Debierne, a French chemist, who separated it from pitchblende. Friedrich Oskar Giesel independently discovered actinium in 1902 and
called it "emanium" in 1904. Debierne's name was retained because it had seniority.
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| Notes
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| It is about 150 times as radioactive as radium.
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| The chemical behavior of actinium is similar to that of the rare earth lanthanum.
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| Hazards
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| Due to its intense radioactivity, actinium glows in the dark with an eerie blue light. 227Ac is extremely radioactive, and in terms of its potential for radiation induced health effects, 227Ac is even more dangerous than plutonium. Ingesting even small amounts of 227Ac would present a serious health hazard.
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