Caesium

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  • caesium
definition
  • A soft silvery-white and highly reactive metal belonging to the alkali group of metals. It is a radiation hazard, because it can occur in two radioactive forms. Caesium-134 is produced in nuclear reactors, not directly by fission, but by the reaction. It emits beta- and gamma-radiation and has a half-life of 2.06 years. Caesium-137 is a fission product of uranium and occurs in the fallout from nuclear weapons. It emits beta- and gamma-rays and has a half-life of 30 years. Caesium-137 was the principal product released into the atmosphere, and hence the food chain, from atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons and from the Windscale fire and Chernobyl nuclear accidents. After the Chernobyl accident, which spread a radiation cloud across Europe, the European Commission proposed new and more restrictive limits on levels of caesium in food and drinking water.
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  • http://eurovoc.europa.eu/1882
Abstract from DBPedia
    Caesium (IUPAC spelling) (or cesium in American English) is a chemical element with the symbol Cs and atomic number 55. It is a soft, silvery-golden alkali metal with a melting point of 28.5 °C (83.3 °F), which makes it one of only five elemental metals that are liquid at or near room temperature. Caesium has physical and chemical properties similar to those of rubidium and potassium. It is pyrophoric and reacts with water even at −116 °C (−177 °F). It is the least electronegative element, with a value of 0.79 on the Pauling scale. It has only one stable isotope, caesium-133. Caesium is mined mostly from pollucite. The element has 40 known isotopes, making it, along with barium and mercury, one of the elements with the most isotopes. Caesium-137, a fission product, is extracted from waste produced by nuclear reactors. The German chemist Robert Bunsen and physicist Gustav Kirchhoff discovered caesium in 1860 by the newly developed method of flame spectroscopy. The first small-scale applications for caesium were as a "getter" in vacuum tubes and in photoelectric cells. In 1967, acting on Einstein's proof that the speed of light is the most-constant dimension in the universe, the International System of Units used two specific wave counts from an emission spectrum of caesium-133 to co-define the second and the metre. Since then, caesium has been widely used in highly accurate atomic clocks. Since the 1990s, the largest has been as caesium formate for drilling fluids, but it has a range of applications in the production of electricity, in electronics, and in chemistry. The radioactive isotope caesium-137 has a half-life of about 30 years and is used in medical applications, industrial gauges, and hydrology. Nonradioactive caesium compounds are only mildly toxic, but the pure metal's tendency to react explosively with water means that caesium is considered a hazardous material, and the radioisotopes present a significant health and ecological hazard in the environment.

    セシウム (新ラテン語: caesium, 英: cesium [ˈsiːziəm]) は、原子番号55の元素。元素記号は、「灰青色の」を意味するラテン語の caesius カエシウスより Cs。軟らかく黄色がかった銀色をしたアルカリ金属である。融点は28.44 °Cで、常温付近で液体状態をとる5種類の金属元素のうちの一つである。 セシウムの化学的・物理的性質は同じくアルカリ金属のルビジウムやカリウムと似ていて、水と−116 °Cで反応するほど反応性に富み、自然発火する。安定同位体を持つ元素の中で、最小の電気陰性度を持つ。セシウムの安定同位体はセシウム133のみである。セシウム資源となる代表的な鉱物はポルックス石である。 ウランの代表的な核分裂生成物として、ストロンチウム90と共にセシウム135、セシウム137が、また原子炉内の反応によってセシウム134が生成される。この中でセシウム137は比較的多量に発生しベータ線を出し半減期も約30年と長く、放射性セシウム(放射性同位体)として、核兵器の使用(実験)による死の灰(黒い雨)や原発事故時の「放射能の雨」などの放射性降下物として環境中の存在や残留が問題となる。 2人のドイツ人化学者、ロベルト・ブンゼンとグスタフ・キルヒホフは、1860年に当時の新技術であるを用いて鉱泉からセシウムを発見した。初めての応用先は真空管や光電素子のであった。1967年、セシウム133の発光スペクトルの比振動数が国際単位系の秒の定義に選ばれた。それ以来、セシウムは原子時計として広く使われている。 1990年代以降のセシウムの最大の応用先は、を使ったである。エレクトロニクスや化学の分野でもさまざまな形で応用されている。放射性同位体であるセシウム137は約30年の半減期を持ち、医療技術、工業用計量器、水文学などに応用されている。

    (Source: http://dbpedia.org/resource/Caesium)