Ask the Chatbot Games & Quizzes History & Society Science & Tech Biographies Animals & Nature Geography & Travel Arts & Culture ProCon Money Videos
actinium-225
References
Britannica AI Icon

actinium-225

chemical isotope
Written by
The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

The Information Architects maintain a master list of the topics included in the corpus of  Encyclopædia Britannica, and create and manage the relationships between them.
The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Last updated

Quick Summary

Actinium-225 (Ac-225) is a radioactive chemical isotope of actinium, an element discovered in 1899. Actinium is a silvery-white metal that glows blue in the dark and is highly radioactive.1

Ac-225 has a half-life of 10 days and decays by emitting alpha particles. Its daughter isotopes emit only alpha and beta particles, without high-energy gamma rays. This characteristic makes Ac-225 potentially useful in nuclear medicine for targeted radiation therapy, delivering high energy to tumors while minimizing damage to surrounding tissues. Complexes of Ac-225 are being studied for this application.1

Summary created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
2 Britannica Sources
  1. actinium
  2. actinium series

Ask Britannica AI about this topic

Britannica doesn't have a full article on this topic, so we've curated a list of our relevant coverage.