As a result, the company officially opened the mine on 27 March 2013 while simultaneously handing over new houses to 246 families who were relocated from Segorong to Praktiseer and Pidima, also in Burgersfort. The opening of the mine and the completion of the houses has been a long and arduous 12-year journey but finally both the community of Segorong and Imerys South Africa have a good reason to celebrate, says Imerys CEO and chairperson Gilles Michel.
Polonium is a radioactive element discovered in 1898 by scientists Marie and Pierre Curie and named for Marieâs native country, Poland. One of the Earthâs rarest elements, itâs an odorless, silvery-gray soft metal that can be ground into powder.
Polonium is pronounced as peh-LOW-nee-em. History and Uses: Polonium was discovered by Marie Sklodowska Curie, a Polish chemist, in 1898. She obtained polonium from pitchblende, a material that contains uranium, after noticing that unrefined pitchblende was more radioactive than the uranium that was separated from it.olonium's most stable isotope, polonium-209, has a half-life of 102 years. It decays into lead -205 through alpha decay. Polonium-209 is available from Oak Ridge National Laboratory at the cost of about $3200 per microcurie.