radium (Ra), radioactive chemical element, heaviest of the alkaline-earth metals of main Group 2 (IIa) of the periodic table. Radium is a silvery white metal that does not occur free in nature.

Radium was discovered (1898) by Pierre Curie, Marie Curie, and an assistant, G. Bémont, after Mme Marie Curie had observed that the radioactivity of pitchblende was four or five times greater than that of the uranium it contained and not fully explained on the basis of radioactive polonium, which she had just discovered in pitchblende residues. The new, powerfully radioactive substance followed the behaviour of could be concentrated with barium, but because its chloride was slightly more insoluble it could be concentrated by fractional crystallization. By 1902, one-tenth The separation was followed by the increase in intensity of new lines in the ultraviolet spectrum and by a steady increase in the apparent atomic weight of the material until a value of 225.18 was obtained, remarkably close to the accepted value of 226.03. By 1902, 0.1 gram of pure radium chloride was prepared by refining several tons of pitchblende residues, and by 1910 Mme Marie Curie and André-Louis Debierne had isolated the metal itself.


Since all the isotopes of radium are radioactive and short-lived on the geological time scale, any primeval radium would have disappeared long ago. Therefore, radium occurs naturally only as a disintegration product in the three natural radioactive-decay series (thorium, uranium, and actinium series). The most stable isotope (1,620-year half-life) Radium-226 is a member of the uranium-decay series. Its parent is thorium-230 and its daughter radon-222. The further decay products, formerly called radium A, B, C, C′, C″, D, etc., are isotopes of polonium, lead, bismuth, and thallium.


Radium’s uses all result from its radiations. The most important use of radium was formerly in medicine, principally for the treatment of cancer by subjecting tumours to the gamma radiation of its daughter isotopes. In many therapeutic applications radium has been superseded by the less costly and more powerful artificial radioisotopes cobalt-60 and cesium-137. An intimate mixture of radium and beryllium is a moderately intense source of neutrons, used for scientific research and for well logging in geophysical prospecting for petroleum. For these uses, however, substitutes have become available. One of the products of radium decay is radon, the heaviest noble gas; this decay process is the chief source of that element.

When concentrated, radium glows in the dark. Because of this property, it was once mixed with a paste of zinc sulfide, which could be excited by alpha particles, to make a self-luminescent paint for watch, clock, and instrument dials. During the 1930s it was found, however, that exposure to radium posed a serious hazard to health: a number of the workers who routinely used women who worked with the radium-containing luminescent paint during the 1910s and ’20s had subsequently died. They had ingested considerable amounts of radium through the habit of licking the points of their brushes. Radium tends to concentrate in bone where alpha radiation interferes with red corpuscle production, so some of these women developed anemia and , in some cases, bone cancer. The practice of employing radium in luminescent coatings was halted in the early 1950s after the high toxicity of the material was recognized. Less hazardous alpha emitters have largely replaced radium. (The detection of exhaled radon provides a very sensitive test for radium absorption.)

In the thorium-decay series of radioactive elements, two radium isotopes occur. They are found naturally in the mineral monazite: radium-228 (6.7-year half-life) and radium-224 (3.64-day half-life). One of their descendants, thallium-208, emits gamma radiation even more penetrating than that of bismuth-214; and, as a result of the complex sequence of half-lives, the gamma activity of freshly purified radium-228 increases for about four years and then steadily decreases. A fourth isotope, radium-223 (11.7-day half-life), occurs in the actinium-decay series.

Metallic radium has high chemical reactivity. It is attacked by water with vigorous evolution of hydrogen and by air with the formation of the nitride. It occurs exclusively as the Ra2+ ion in all its compounds. The sulfate, RaSO4, is the most insoluble sulfate known, and the hydroxide, Ra(OH)2, is the most soluble of the alkaline-earth hydroxides. Its compounds are very similar to the corresponding barium compounds, making separation of the two elements difficult.


atomic number88stablest isotope226melting pointabout 700° Cboiling pointabout 1,737° Cspecific gravityabout 5oxidation state+2electronic config.[Rn]7s2