pitchblende

IPA: pˈɪtʃbɫɛnd

(mineralogy) Naturally-occurring uranium oxide, a variety of the mineral uraninite.

Examples of "pitchblende" in Sentences

Uranium occurs chiefly as pitchblende, which is an impure oxide
Between 1898 and 1899, the Curies received 1.1 tons of pitchblende from the Austrians.
They found a certain kind of pitchblende which was very active, and they analysed tons of it, concentrating always on the radiant element in it.
But the discovery in 1924 of a large pitchblende deposit in the Belgian Congo provided a more dependable radium supply and the interest in American carnotite fizzled.
Still, while the uranium at Port Radium and Shinkolobwe was found in dependable pitchblende ore, the carnotite of the American West seemed unpromising for the large amounts the Pentagon said it needed.
In a waste ore called pitchblende, a black sludge that came from the peaty forests of Joachimsthal in what is now the Czech Republic, the Curies found the first signal of a new element—an element many times more radioactive than uranium.
I wouldn't like to speculate on what that could be though I imagine if you could have a conversation now with Marie Curie about radiation she might have some thoughts about what she wished she'd known before she started work with pitchblende ores.
In their attempt to separate radium from bismuth, both contained in pitchblende, Marie and Pierre found that by crystallizing the chloride of radioactive barium from a solution, they obtained crystals that were more radioactive and richer in radium than the chloride which remained resolved.