What makes radon unique

Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph. Chemistry Expert. Helmenstine holds a Ph. She has taught science courses at the high school, college, and graduate levels. Facebook Facebook Twitter Twitter. Updated September 02, Featured Video. Cite this Article Format. Distinguishing between Rn the isotope called 'radon' and Rn thoron is not of idle linguistic and historic interest.

Not all home radon detectors pictured are sensitive to thoron, and thoron-sensitive detectors must be placed with care because thoron does not travel far from its source. Very few isotopes hold special names in modern chemistry: deuterium, tritium and thoron exist as near-element footnotes on the periodic table. Actinon has nearly vanished from the scientific literature, likely due to its short half-life and comparatively negligible health impacts.

Ramsay, W. Clarke, F. Article Google Scholar. Wilson, D. Google Scholar. Aston, F. Curie, M. Bassett, H. Janik, M. Download references. You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar.

Correspondence to Brett F. Thornton or Shawn C. Reprints and Permissions. Thornton, B. Recalling radon's recognition. Nature Chem 5, Download citation. Why then should we worry about radon levels in our homes?

The problem is, when breathed in, it can decay to form other, longer-lasting, solid radioactive species, which can coat the lungs, leading to continual exposure. These so-called 'radon daughters' include polonium, polonium and lead - not family members you'd wish to spend a lot of time with.

Prolonged radon exposure is believed to be the second most frequent cause of lung cancer after smoking. The unfortunate gentleman with the basement full of radon had a risk of consequentially developing lung cancer equivalent to smoking packs of cigarettes every day! So now that I'm comfortable in my freshly decorated new home, all that remains for me to do is to check that my surroundings are as safe as they look.

Fortunately that's easily done these days with radon test kits which you can order online. You place them in the corner of a room for three months and forget about them and then send them away to be analysed. But maybe don't take a deep breath before you open the results from the lab, just in case. Next week from a chemical that kills silently and slowly to an albeit more fearsome beast.

The year old technician spilled only a few hundred millilitres or so in his lap during a routine palaeontology experiment. He took the normal precaution in such situations, quickly dowsing himself with water from a laboratory hose, and even plunged into a nearby swimming pool while the paramedics were en route.

But a week later, doctors removed a leg, and a week after that, he was dead. The culprit: hydrofluoric acid colloquially known as HF , and the unfortunate man was not its first victim. But what killed him, and what about the people who first isolated HF, unaware of its terrible reputation? Well you can find out what happened to them from Kira Weissman on next week's Chemistry in its element.

I'm Chris Smith, thank you for listening and goodbye. Chemistry in its element is brought to you by the Royal Society of Chemistry and produced by thenakedscientists. There's more information and other episodes of Chemistry in its element on our website at chemistryworld.

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Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Youtube. Discovery date. Discovered by. Friedrich Ernst Dorn. Origin of the name. The name is derived from radium, as it was first detected as an emission from radium during radioactive decay. Melting point. Boiling point. Atomic number. Relative atomic mass.

Key isotopes. Electron configuration. CAS number. ChemSpider ID. ChemSpider is a free chemical structure database. Electronegativity Pauling scale. Common oxidation states. Atomic mass. Half life. Mode of decay. Relative supply risk. Crustal abundance ppm. Top 3 producers. Top 3 reserve holders. Political stability of top producer. Political stability of top reserve holder.

Young's modulus GPa. Shear modulus GPa.