The papers included in this volume were presented at the symposium on
"Americium and Curium Chemistry and Technology" at the International
Chemical Congress of Pacific Basin Societies in Honolulu, Hawaii,
December 16-21, 1984. This symposium commemorated forty years of
research on americium and curium. Accordingly, the papers included in
this volume begin with historical perspectives on the discovery of
americium and curium and the early characterization of their chemical
properties, and then cover a wide range of subjects, such as
thermodynamic properties, electronic structure, nuclear reactions,
analytic chemistry, high pressure phase transitions, and technological
aspects. Thus, this volume is a review of the chemistry of americium and
curium, and provides a perspective on the current research on these
elements forty years after their discovery. The editors would like to
thank the participants in this symposium for their contributions. It is
a pleasure to acknowledge the assistance of Ms. Barbara Moriguchi in
handling the administrative aspects of the symposium and of the
production of this volume. April 2, 1985 Norman M. Edelstein Materials
and Molecular Research Division Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory University
of California Berkeley, California 94720, U.S.A. James D. Navratil
Rockwell International Rocky Flats Plant P.O. Box 464 Golden, Colorado
80402-0464, U.S.A. Wallace W. Schulz Rockwell Hanford P.O. Box 800
Richland, Washington 99352, U.S.A.