"Route 1:" The traditional aerosolization reaction utilizes curium metal as the starting material. While curium metal has been discovered to naturally exist as a mixture of 87.4% 244Cm, 8.4% 243Cm, 3.9% other curium isotopes, and ~0.3% of the daughter nuclide, plutonium, in most aerosolized syntheses of curium(III) oxide, curium metal is purified through solvent extraction of curium nitrate and "bis"(2-ethylhexyl) phosphoric acid in toluene to remove the plutonium. NH3OH is then added to the purified curium nitrate, and the resulting precipitate is collected and rinsed with deionized water. The precipitate (Cm2O3) is resuspended in solvent and aerosolized with some sort of high output aerosol generator (ex: Lovelace nebulizer).