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So Element 96 was Curium which named after Marie Curie and Pierre
Curie who were the discoverers of Radium.
Because of its high levels of radioactivity curium can be used in
thermoelectric generators to produce electricity and you’ll get about 120
watts per hour out of one of these. However, because it is so radioactive
no-one’s really interested in using it in commercial processes.
Well, past Uranium everything is synthetically made, you need access to
nuclear power stations or nuclear bombs or big colliders to be able to
make these elements. They are extremely radioactive, very hard to
handle, and only a handful of places in the UK have got the sort of
facilities you need to deal with these types of compounds. So even
somebody such as myself, it’s not really what I do, it’s a little bit beyond
where my area is. I’d pretty much stop at Uranium. That’s the limit of
normal laboratory chemistry.