![]() ![]() A sample of DNA can be broken down this way into sections with variants in the base pairs linking the dual helix. When that substance is caesium chloride it has proved ideal for splitting off nucleic acids, because of its good water solubility and relatively high density. Here, extremely high speed centrifuges, producing a g force of up to a million times that of Earth surface gravity, are used to separate out materials using a gradient of increasingly high concentrations of a dissolved compound. One of the most common uses of the compound is in ultracentrifugation. Thankfully, the non-radioactive form has relatively low toxicity and some interesting tricks up its sleeve. She was one of four who died as a result of the exposure, with over 200 more suffering significant radioactive contamination. Samples of the glowing powder were shared around to the extent that the scrapyard owner’s six-year-old niece used it as a skin decoration. Because the exposed caesium chloride gave off an eerie blue glow, it proved a popular talking point – just as radium did when first discovered by the Curies. ![]() The thieves partially broke open the container and sold it on for scrap. Generally, the radioactive form is kept in highly secure containers, but in 1987 a caesium chloride source containing about 93 grams of the salt was stolen from an disused hospital in Goiania, Brazil. It’s generally preferred that a compound for this use can’t be easily spread in an accident, but caesium chloride packs a lot of radioactivity into a small volume, making it ideal for treatments where the radioactive material needs to be accurately sited. This radioactive form is used to treat cancers and is relatively unusual in medical radioisotopes in being water soluble. But to create the radioactive form of the compound, it is enriched with caesium isotopes, particularly caesium 137, produced in the waste of nuclear reactors.Īn example of the mineral Pollucite on display in the Vale Inco Limited Gallery of Minerals at the Royal Ontario Museum. Elemental caesium itself is usually produced from the caesium chloride extracted from the mineral. It is most concentrated in a mineral called pollucite, also containing aluminium and silicon amongst other constituents, where the caesium makes up around 20 per cent of the whole. Caesium chloride with the non-radioactive caesium 133 occurs naturally, as a trace constituent in some minerals and in mineral water (which is where caesium was discovered). The best-known uses are probably those involving a radioactive form of the salt. By contrast, in sodium chloride, each ion is surrounded by six of its counterpart in an octahedral shape. Structurally, the salt is a simple chloride like the more familiar sodium chloride, but because caesium is a lot closer to chlorine in size, it forms a crystalline structure where each caesium ion is surrounded by eight chlorines at the corners of a cube. Yet, while only about 20 tonnes of this colourless crystalline substance are produced each year, it has a surprisingly wide range of applications. This week, Brian Clegg brings us a versatile compound that’s used in cancer treatment, solar cells and even making beer…Ĭaesium is one of those elements that feels unfamiliar – it would probably be ‘pointless’ in a periodic table question on the eponymous TV show – which leaves a compound like caesium chloride in inevitable obscurity.
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