History of chemistry element among the fractions that resulted. Working with the mineral pitchblende, the pair discovered a new radioactive element in 1898. They named the element polonium, after Marie's native country of Poland. On December 21, 1898, the Curies detected the presence of another radioactive material in the pitchblende. They presented this finding to the French Academy of Sciences on December 26, proposing that the new element be called radium. The Curies then went to work isolating polonium and radium from naturally occurring compounds to prove that they were new elements. In 1902, the Curies announced that they had produced a decigram
Polonium hydride selenol and tellurol). However, no salts from polonium hydride are known. An example of a polonide is lead polonide (PbPo), which occurs naturally as lead is formed in the alpha decay of polonium. Polonium hydride is difficult to work with due to the extreme radioactivity of polonium and its compounds and has only been prepared in very dilute tracer quantities. As a result, its physical properties are not definitely known. It is also unknown if polonium hydride forms an acidic solution in water like its lighter homologues, or if it behaves more like a metal hydride (see also hydrogen astatide).