Observation of a promethium complex in solution. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38778232/)

These scientists wanted to learn more about a special element called promethium, which is the 61st element in the periodic table and is very radioactive. They found that even though promethium is important, scientists haven't studied it much because it's hard to work with. So, the scientists created a new chemical that can safely interact with promethium in water. They used special tools to look at how promethium atoms bond with this new chemical and measured the distance between them. By doing this, they were able to understand how promethium behaves compared to other similar elements. This helped them see a pattern in how the bond lengths change in a group of elements called lanthanides. This study helped us learn more about how these elements interact with each other and how we can separate them for different uses.

Driscoll DM., White FD., Pramanik S., Einkauf JD., Ravel B., Bykov D., Roy S., Mayes RT., Delmau LH., Cary SK., Dyke T., Miller A., Silveira M., VanCleve SM., Davern SM., Jansone-Popova S., Popovs I., Ivanov AS. Observation of a promethium complex in solution. Nature. 2024 May;629(8013):819-823. doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07267-6. Epub 2024 May 22.