Group 3 element it from pitchblende residues left by Marie and Pierre Curie after they had extracted radium. In 1899, Debierne described the substance as similar to titanium and (in 1900) as similar to thorium. Friedrich Oskar Giesel independently discovered actinium in 1902 as a substance being similar to lanthanum and called it "emanium" in 1904. After a comparison of the substances half-lives determined by Debierne, Hariett Brooks in 1904, and Otto Hahn and Otto Sackur in 1905, Debierne's chosen name for the new element was retained because it had seniority, despite the contradicting chemical properties he claimed for the element at different
Uranium metallurgy to any appreciable extent that is fissile, that is, fissionable by thermal neutrons. The isotope U is also important because it absorbs neutrons to produce a radioactive isotope that subsequently decays to the isotope 239Pu (plutonium), which also is fissile. Uranium in its natural state comprises just 0.71% U and 99.3% U, and the main focus of uranium metallurgy is the enrichment of uranium through isotope separation. Uranium metallurgy In materials science and materials engineering, uranium metallurgy is the study of the physical and chemical behavior of uranium and its alloys. Commercial-grade uranium can be produced through the reduction of