Caesium Chloride

Caesium chloride (cesium chloride in North America), is the inorganic compound with the formula CsCl. This colorless solid is an important source of caesium ions in a variety of applications. Its crystal structure forms a major structural type where each caesium ion is coordinated by 8 chlorine ions. Caesium chloride crystals are thermally stable, but easily dissolve in water and concentrated hydrochloric acid, and therefore gradually disintegrate in the ambient conditions due to moisture. Caesium chloride occurs naturally in mineral waters and as an impurity in carnallite (up to 0.002%), sylvite and kainite. Less than 20 tonnes of CsCl is produced annually worldwide, mostly from a caesium-bearing mineral pollucite.

Caesium chloride is widely used in isopycnic centrifugation for separating various types of DNA. It is a reagent in analytical chemistry, where it is used to identify ions by the color and morphology of the precipitate. When enriched in radioisotopes, such as 137CsCl or 131CsCl, caesium chloride is used in nuclear medicine applications such as treatment of cancer and diagnosis of myocardial infarction. Another form of cancer treatment was studied using conventional non-radioactive CsCl. Whereas conventional caesium chloride has a rather low toxicity to humans and animals, the radioactive form easily contaminates the environment due to the high solubility of CsCl in water. Spread of 137CsCl powder from a 93-gram container in 1987 in Goiânia, Brazil, resulted in one of the worst-ever radiation spill accidents killing four and directly affecting more than 100,000 people.