Winson's Tale - Promethium

Promethium is an element with atomic number 61, belonging to the lanthanide series and is a radioactive rare-earth metal. It is expected to be a silvery-white metal, and since all its isotopes are radioactive, stable promethium does not exist in nature. In nature, it can be produced in trace amounts during uranium fission or the decay of other radioactive elements, and industrially, it is obtained as a fission product in nuclear reactors. Promethium-147 has a relatively long half-life and beta-ray emission properties, and has been used in applications such as radioisotope batteries and thickness gauging devices. In particular, radioisotope batteries, which convert the energy of particles emitted by radioactive materials into electrical energy, have been researched for their potential use in environments where long-term maintenance is difficult. Due to its extreme rarity in nature and strong radioactivity, promethium is not widely used in general industry. In space, it can be formed during stellar nucleosynthesis, but since the half-lives of all its isotopes are relatively short, the possibility of natural promethium still existing today is very low.