Actinium is a silvery, radioactive, metallic element. Due to its intense radioactivity, actinium glows in the dark with a pale blue light. The chemical behaviour of actinium is similar to that of the rare earth element lanthanum. Actinium shows similar chemical behaviour to lanthanum. Due to this similarity the separation of actinium from lanthanum and the other rare earth elements, which are also present in uranium ores was difficult. Solvent extraction and ion exchange chromatography was used for the separation.