Atomic number 84
Polonium
Metalloid
No photo: here’s why
Polonium is intensely radioactive and exists only in tiny traces. The pure metal has been made in minute, heavily shielded amounts - never anything you would encounter.
Quick facts
- Atomic mass
- 209.00
- Group
- 16
- Period
- 6
- State (STP)
- solid
- Electronegativity
- 2.00
- Common ox. states
- -2, +2, +4
Properties
[Xe] 4f¹⁴ 5d¹⁰ 6s² 6p⁴
- Ionization energy
- 812.1 kJ/mol
- Electron affinity
- 183.3 kJ/mol
- Melting point
- 527.00 K (253.9 °C)
- Boiling point
- 1235.00 K (961.9 °C)
How dangerous is it?
A speck too small to see can be deadly, but only if it gets inside the body. From across the room its radiation barely reaches you.
- RadioactiveImmediate
It throws off alpha radiation that does little from outside the skin but wrecks cells once swallowed or inhaled. (dangerous once it is inside the body, not from a distance)
Handled only in sealed glove boxes by licensed labs, with strict contamination checks.
- ToxicImmediate
By weight it is among the most poisonous substances known.
Never handled in the open; gloves, sealed containers, and constant monitoring.
How it bonds
Polonium is intensely radioactive (one of Marie Curie's discoveries, named for her native Poland). Group-16 chemistry on paper, but Po-210 emits alpha particles so energetically that the metal glows blue from radioluminescence. Famous for the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko (2006).
