Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Some nuclear chemistry!

Xanax - 3-12-2006 at 04:50

I have got som funny substances and have 2 experiment at the time!

In both experiment you will need neutronium-radiation (n-radiation). We got this through mix Americium-241 with Beryllium-9. I normaly keep this substanses away from each other, because I've no protection agains n-radiation.


Experiment 1

In this experiment, we are going to split atoms. We beams n-radiation to sticks with Thorium-232. The following reaktion is:
Th-232 + n --> Th-233 (T½ = 22,3 minutes) --> e- (β-radiation) & Pa-233 (T½ = 27,0 days) --> e- (β-radiation) & U-233

U-233 is a fissionable isotope. And then, you can build your own nuclear reactor! But it is fairly boring because I've no turbines or somthing which can generate electricity. It only gets warm and send out som boring radiation, which is boring to be contamineted by!


Experiment 2

In this experiment, we are going to produce a substanste, which has been discussed the latest week. We beam n-radiation agains a piece of Bismuth-209. And the reaction which follows is:
Bi-209 + n --> Bi-210 (T½ = 5,01 days) --> e- (β-radiation) & Po-210

And then, Polonium-210 can be used for example to poison ex russian agents, or just put in sombodys food, just as a practical joke!

And then I have som Uranium and Thallium too, but have not found out some fun use for this. The Uranium is simply harmless, it is only uranium-ore in the form of glass-balls. But the Thallium is so damn toxic som I don't care to open the glass-ampoule!



STRÅLNINGFARA = Radiation Danger
Americium-241 = Americium-241
Torium-232 = Thorium-232
Vismut-209 = Bismuth-209
Tallium-205 = Thallium-205
Uran-malm = Uranium-ore
Beryllium-9 = Beryllium-9



[Edited on 3-12-2006 by Xanax]

unionised - 3-12-2006 at 06:50

Do you know how toxic Be is?

garage chemist - 3-12-2006 at 07:55

Compact Beryllium is harmless- look at Theodore Gray's Beryllium samples.

Fortunately, you won't make nearly enough nuclear isotopes and neutrons to do you any harm. Otherwise you won't be as lucky as with your Ricin extraction.

12AX7 - 3-12-2006 at 09:42

Rather hard to make visible (maybe milimole) quantities of anything through low-level nuclear chemistry. The physics lab at school has a neutron howitzer
consisting of, I'm told, 3 Ci of pluotonium (alpha source, which we calculated to be in the neighborhood of 50-100g) plus some amount of Be, resulting in
some neutrons. A bunch of plastic (PE or acrylic or something) and a steel casing keeps the radiation inside. Samples can be irradiated to perform neutron
absorbtion spectroscopy. But yeah, that's 1.11 x 10^11 reactions per second, of which a small percentage tunnel into the beryllium and split off neutrons.
Constrast this to the massive 6 x 10^23 of Avagadro's number: it would take millions of years to induce a visible amount of reaction, and that's if you change
the plutonium core every couple ten thousand years. You would have to have a couple moles of americium (which don't get me wrong, I'd love to see it,
I mean actually see it, it would glow bright blue!) to transmute even a few milimoles of thorium, in the process burning probably a few centimoles of beryllium.
Much easier to just burn the americium in an ordinary nuclear reactor.

Tim

Edit: formatting. Your picture is way too wide...

[Edited on 12-3-2006 by 12AX7]

franklyn - 4-12-2006 at 10:42

Berylliosis is caused by inhaling beryllium dust, it is the only hazard and is otherwise a harmless material.

.

unionised - 20-12-2006 at 11:06

The range of an alpha particle in Be is practically zero so, to make best use of it, the Be in neutron sources is very finely powdered and mixed with the alpha source. (The Americium would be finely divided too for the same reason).
This would make it perfect for inhalation.
Under the circumstances, I think the toxicity of the Be would be more of an issue than the neutron flux generated in any "home brew" rig, and possibly more of a problem than the americium too.

neptunium - 16-9-2014 at 10:50

what happened to Xanax? his experiment are pretty cool did he/she got busted or what?

careysub - 16-9-2014 at 11:04

Quote: Originally posted by neptunium  
what happened to Xanax? his experiment are pretty cool did he/she got busted or what?[/rquote

Based on his post I would say that there was no actual experiment in the offing. It looks like fantasy nuclear chemistry, a la David Hahn.

If he had posted a credible calculation of what sort of activation (or exposure) is possible with an a smoke detector source/beryllium radiation source then I would believe he wasn't just blowing smoke.

If he got busted, it wasn't for anything he was posting about on this thread.

Dornier 335A - 16-9-2014 at 12:46

Xanax must be the Swedish guy famous for having tried to build a nuclear reactor in his kitchen... He was busted indeed, I followed the whole thing on the largest Swedish forum (flashback.org). Here is a link to his blog: http://richardsreactor.blogspot.se/ Start from the bottom to get the whole story.