Americium facts for kids

Americium is a special chemical element. It's a metal that is also radioactive. Its chemical symbol is Am, and its atomic number is 95. In chemistry, americium belongs to a group of metals called actinides.

Americium is also a transuranic element. This means it comes after uranium on the periodic table. All transuranic elements, including americium, are man-made. They don't naturally exist on Earth. Americium has a shiny silver color. Scientists create it by hitting plutonium with tiny particles called neutrons.

Discovering Americium

Americium was the fourth transuranic element ever found. It was discovered in 1944 by a team of scientists led by Glenn T. Seaborg. They worked at the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago. The element was named after the Americas, just like the element Francium was named after France.

What is Americium Used For?

The most common use for americium is in smoke detectors. A tiny amount of americium-241 is inside most smoke detectors. It helps the detector sense smoke particles in the air.

Is Americium in Smoke Detectors Safe?

Yes, the amount of radioactivity from americium in smoke detectors is very small. It is not enough to cause harm or cancer. This makes smoke detectors safe for people to have in their homes and other buildings. The main purpose of the americium is to help keep people safe by warning them about fires.

Properties of Americium

Americium is a radioactive element. This means it slowly changes into other elements over time. The longest half-life for a type of americium is 7,370 years. This is how long it takes for half of a sample of americium to change into something else.

Images for kids

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  The 60-inch cyclotron at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, in August 1939.

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  The triangle in the glass tube contains the first sample of americium (as the hydroxide (Am(OH)3)), produced in 1944.

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  Americium was detected in the fallout from the Ivy Mike nuclear test.

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  Chromatographic elution curves revealing the similarity between the lanthanides Tb, Gd, and Eu and the corresponding actinides Bk, Cm, and Am.

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  Double-hexagonal close packing with the layer sequence ABAC in the crystal structure of α-americium (A: green, B: blue, C: red).

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  Predicted structure of amerocene [(η8-C8H8)2Am]

See also

In Spanish: Americio para niños