0 a chemical element that is a silver-white metal. It is radioactive and is used to make smoke detectors (= devices that make a loud noise when smoke is present):
tiny quantities of americium
Two new drugs have been approved to treat radiation contamination due to plutonium, americium, or curium.
Officials insist that the low levels of plutonium, americium and other man-made radioactive contaminants present in the groundwater pose no public health threat.
To determine the a-value, two discs were irradiated with an -241 americium source.
In the case of plutonium, the material changes its characteristics over time, mainly as a result of the formation of americium 241.
Is it true, for example, that one was americium?
Practically all the plutonium 241 and americium 241 remains indefinitely immobilised below the surface layer of seabed sediments.
It is estimated that about one third of this had decayed to give some 5,560 curies of americium 241 by the end of 1982, the rest remaining as plutonium 241.
The americium-241 and curium-242 isotopes also were produced by irradiating plutonium in a nuclear reactor.
