AFPĪfter the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011, triggered by an earthquake and tsunami, Caesium-137 was found in trees, soils, and mushrooms in the forest area contaminated around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.Ĭhernobyl and Fukushima are examples where the metal can contaminate water bodies, trees, and soil surfaces and can be ingested with food and water. During the nuclear power plant accident of 1986 around 27 kg of Caesium-137 was expelled into the atmosphere. The ghost town of Pripyat near the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. In 2002, sixteen years after the disaster, a 4000 sq km area still contained too much Caesium-137 to be inhabited or used for agricultural purposes, according to a 2012 research paper titled “Cesium-137: A Deadly Hazard”. It was the predominant source of radiation in the fallout from the disaster. During the explosion around 27 kg of the metal was expelled into the atmosphere. One of the biggest Caesium-137 contaminations happened during the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident of 1986. Have there been major incidents involving Caesium-137? However, mishandling of industrial sources, a nuclear detonation or a major nuclear accident can cause it to leak. Large amounts of Caesium-137 are not found in the environment in normal circumstances. Internal exposure to it through ingestion or inhalation allows the radioactive material to be distributed in the soft tissues, especially muscle tissue, which increases cancer risk, warns EPA. External exposure can increase the risk of cancer because of the presence of high-energy gamma radiation. It is produced by nuclear fission it is also one of the byproducts of nuclear fission processes in nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons testing, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).Ĭaesium-137 can cause serious illness when touched, leading to burns and acute radiation sickness. Caesium-137 is the most common radioactive form of caesium. Department of Fire and Emergency Services handout via ReutersĬaesium is a soft, flexible, silvery-white metal that becomes liquid near room temperature, but easily bonds with chlorides to create a crystalline powder. This is because caesium explodes instantly upon contact with water, leaving little time for hydrogen to accumulate.Members of the Incident Management Team coordinate the search for a radioactive capsule that was lost in transit by a contractor hired by Rio Tinto, at the Emergency Services Complex in Cockburn, Australia. However, a caesium-water explosion is often less powerful than a sodium -water explosion with a similar amount of sodium. It can be handled only under inert gas, such as argon. It is stored and shipped in dry, saturated hydrocarbons such as mineral oil. It reacts with solid water at temperatures as low as −116 ☌īecause of this high reactivity, caesium metal is classified as a hazardous material. It ignites spontaneously in air, and reacts explosively with water even at low temperatures, more so than the other alkali metals ( first group of the periodic table ). Its compounds burn with a blue or violet colour.Ĭaesium metal is highly reactive and very pyrophoric. In addition, the metal has a rather low boiling point, 641 ☌ (1,186 ☏), the lowest of all metals other than mercury. Mercury is the only elemental metal with a known melting point lower than caesium. It has a melting point of 28.5 ☌ (83.3 ☏), making it one of the few elemental metals that are liquid near room temperature. When in the presence of mineral oil (where it is best kept during transport), it loses its metallic lustre and takes on a duller, grey appearance. It is a very ductile, pale metal, which darkens in the presence of trace amounts of oxygen. Caesium is mined mostly from pollucite, while the radioisotopes, especially caesium-137, a fission product, are extracted from waste produced by nuclear reactors.Ĭaesium is the softest element (it has a hardness of 0.2 Mohs). It has only one stable isotope, caesium-133. It is the least electronegativeelement, with a value of 0.79 on the Pauling scale. The most reactive of all metals, it is pyrophoric and reacts with water even at −116 ☌ (−177 ☏). It is a soft, silvery-gold alkali metal with a melting point of 28.5 ☌ (83.3 ☏), which makes it one of only five elemental metals that are liquid at or near room temperature. Caesium has physical and chemical properties similar to those of rubidium and potassium. Caesium (IUPAC spelling) or cesium (American spelling) is a chemical element with symbol Cs and atomic number 55.
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