Radium bromide the air causes this luminescence. Radium bromide is also very dangerous since the crystals occasionally explode. Helium gas evolved from alpha particles can accumulate within the crystals which cause them to weaken and rupture. Another property of radium bromide is its ability to crystallize from an aqueous solution. It forms a dihydrate, very similar to barium bromide. The chemical radium bromide is not found in nature; it is created. To extract radium from uranium or pitchblende ores, the most common practice is called the Curie method which it involves two major stages. The first stage is a chemical treatment to
United States Radium Corporation years, it opened facilities in Newark, Jersey City, and Orange. In August 1921, von Sochocky was forced from the presidency, and the company was renamed the United States Radium Corporation. In Orange, where radium was extracted from 1917 to 1926, the U.S. Radium facility processed half a ton of ore per day. The ore was obtained from "Undark mines" in Paradox Valley, Colorado and in Utah. A notable employee from 1921 to 1923 was Victor Francis Hess, who would later receive the Nobel Prize in Physics. The company's luminescent paint, marketed as Undark, was a mixture of radium and zinc