Curium in Smoke detectors? - Nuclear chemistry

Рет қаралды 1,853

Күн бұрын

The initial idea for the video came by an interesting find of a discord member "Radium Quetzal"
Discord: / discord
Instagram: / simons.chemiebaukasten
german: / @simonschemiebaukasten
TikTok: / simons.chemie
Patreon: / simonschemiebaukasten
Animation by Joenna: / joenna_art
0:00 nuclear data
0:43 measurements
2:07 spectrum
2:52 Am-242?
5:40 Am-243?
6:11 Cm-242?
8:21 Cm-243?
10:16 Pa-233?
11:43 Bye :)
#Curium #Americium #Neptunium #radioactivity

Пікірлер: 39

@Muonium1 Ай бұрын

When I think of Am241 I think of a 'clean' and simple spectrum of the 60 KeV and 29 KeV lines. But in reality it's actually like a complete train wreck in there when under the microscope.

@brfisher1123 Ай бұрын

Well yeah, 241Am actually emits a whole slew of gamma rays but as Simon kind of pointed out, the intensities of the other gamma rays are unfortunately far too low to be detectable in most cases plus Simon has one of the best gamma detectors.

@christopherleubner6633 Ай бұрын

Yup those lines are both very good for calibration of LEG probes. Used to build combined neutron and LEG probes from surplus LiI:Eu crystals. The sensitivity and resolution at the low energy region was very good.❤

@James-xu3vc Ай бұрын

Ya, so smoke detectors have curium, neptunium, and plutonium in them, eh? Crazy !! 😂😂

@natekloepfer1571 Ай бұрын

It's also possible that the 228 and 277 keV lines are due to 239Np produced by alpha decay of 243Am, 239Np emits 228 and 278 keV gammas according to the nuclide chart.

@SimonsNuclearchemistry Ай бұрын

Could be a mixture of both

@SimonsNuclearchemistry Ай бұрын

If Np-239 would be the primary reason for the height of the peak, I'd expect the 106 to be way higher

@Neptunium Ай бұрын

How cool is that! Access to high activity source and university equipment is helpful and awesome! Thank you for this precision! Keep it up !

@davidhall6565 Ай бұрын

I'm just a casual autodidact not a student. I understand the -m suffix for metastable, but have never encountered the -g suffix you mentioned with Am-242g. What does it stand for?

@SimonsNuclearchemistry Ай бұрын

Ground state. So "normal" Americium. But whenever there is a meta stable state and both are important, I like to not say "Am-241m and Am-241" but rather "Am-241m and Am-241g"... its Personal preference

@davidhall6565 Ай бұрын

Thank you! That makes a lot of sense in this context.

@RafaCB0987 Ай бұрын

That was a really good analisis

@brfisher1123 Ай бұрын

I’m not too surprised that there are other gamma energies besides the ones at 26 keV and 59.54 keV given their low intensities but pretty cool to see the other 241Am gamma energies in addition to those from other radionuclides like 243Cm! ☢️

@wilhellmllw3608 Ай бұрын

Yummy!

@nighthawk9264 Ай бұрын

Suggestion or request for an experiment: companies like KHS sell keychains filled with Tritium, also know as trigalights or glowrings. The beta radiation excites a Phospor coating, so they glow. (KHS sells them and state an activity of less than 1 GBq, so they are legal in Germany) I know that *in theory*, they should be totally safe, since the radiation is shielded by the glass vial and plastic housing. However, many people don't believe me when I am saying that. Maybe make a video with them? Could measure them and combine it with a video about hydrogen isotopes.

@SimonsNuclearchemistry Ай бұрын

Would love to! Triga has some really spicy ones with 20GBq but I guess I have to settle for the 1GBq ones. Was talking to my Prof. About it but know we know that not even a Nuclear lab in germany can just buy radioactive stuff from everywhere😅

@James-xu3vc Ай бұрын

Who is a nucleotide geek?? RAISE YOUR HAND !!! ❤❤❤

@kwokhardy2512 Ай бұрын

😘

@chanheosican6636 17 күн бұрын

I was incorrect but Am241 by fission process does emit Gamma good enough for my GC.

@triton6490 Ай бұрын

This channel is absolutely amazing, ive always wondered this exact question, but my radiacode 102 gets decalibrated very quickly when exposed to my americium source so I havent been able to measure it long enough to tell. I have a question as well, what is the peak i always get at around 80 KeV when I measure anything? Nothing online seems to mention it. Every source I have measured has a dull and rounded peak at around 80 KeV.

@SimonsNuclearchemistry Ай бұрын

If you are measuring background and you get this. Can't it be, that the RC just has the highest efficiency at 80kev. Making it appear as a peak?

@Havron Ай бұрын

Incredible work, Simon! I had long suspected that there should be traces of curium in common americium, and it is truly amazing to finally see proof of this! Two questions: Firstly, is this material from the same source that household smoke detectors come from? Are you certain that these results also apply to that material? Conceivably, there could be a difference in the production process, yes? I was under the impression that commercial Am-241 was produced by "milking" Pu-241 "cows", and that method would allow for much better separation of elements and thus potentially produce neither Am-243 nor any Cm isotopes. Is it possible that this is where smoke detector Am-241 comes from, whereas only your larger sample contains bulk americium straight from the reactor? Secondly, is it possible that the Am-243 and Cm isotopes arise from self-neutron-absorption via the fact that both Am-241 and its daughter Np-237 undergo occasional spontaneous fission? Granted, the rates are extremely low, so while I am fairly sure that this is indeed going on to some extent, perhaps it would be too little to detect?

@SimonsNuclearchemistry Ай бұрын

:) Uffff I couldn't find any information regarding the production of the smoke detectors and didn't feel like measuring one Button for several weeks. If i get to it, I will make a follow up post any maybe change the title of the Video. As for now I am assuming they are produced the same way. Even if i could well imagen our source to be specifically produced from a cow since it was made for a nuclear lab and not some dirt cheap smoke detector. Like if you have nuclear waste, best to recycle it in smoke detectors (@ china) 2) Possible yes, although highly unlikely the quantities of Am in the sample are soooo small and the occurance of sf is so small that if Am-243 is present it might be from the original production. But if the Am-241 is from Pu-241 cow and one could find Am-243 then, this would be the only explanation as to why. However I can only measure a chinese smokedetector and finding information about the production would be close to impossible right? :D

@Havron Ай бұрын

@@SimonsNuclearchemistry Indeed, it would make sense to use all available material if you have it, so perhaps commercial Am sources contain a mix of both direct reactor and Pu cow material. Or, the post-reactor material was allowed to sit for some time (it certainly needs a cooldown period at the very least) and is then "milked" wholesale at that point. In any case, good questions that would be great to answer if you have the time! It would also make sense that separation to produce Pu cows isn't perfect either, yes? Surely there are at least a handful of atoms of all sorts of tasty transuranics and other fun things in any reactor-sourced product. The question is, how much could be expected? Are you perhaps able to get a hold of an old 70s-era Pyrotronics F5A smoke detector? I believe these were indeed sold in Germany - or perhaps Switzerland? Maybe both - as the cup inside has the word "Achtung" embossed on it, in addition to "Attention" and "Radioactive". So, surely they are around where you are, no? These early detectors were made with a much larger 60 μCi of Am-241 in the mast and so are frequently sought after by element collectors, which I think in many ways is the point here: Can element collectors claim to own some curium already? The quantity of material in one of these older detectors would be much easier to analyze than the tiny

@The-One-and-Only100 Ай бұрын

@Havron after my current running experiment with my radiacode, I could spend a few months waiting for the spectrum from a microcurie of americium from a modern smoke detector (I've already did spectroscopy with one but not in a lead castle so hopefully it will look different and that was only 2 weeks running)

@Havron Ай бұрын

@@The-One-and-Only100 Hey, go for it! Unfortunately, I suspect that you will not be able to make out these small peaks. I have done a similar test with my Raysid surrounded by one inch of lead, and there is just too much noise and imprecision with these small detectors. Plus, very long detection times tend to lead to thermal peak broadening and possibly even calibration drift. I assume that the detector in Simon's lab is a professional HPGe detector, which is far better than what either of us have. These instruments are truly incredible, and will show oodles of peaks that us private citizens with our smaller (but still truly amazing!) toys can never hope to see. Still, it is absolutely worth trying! You never know. I have on occasion been able to pick up peaks that I never expected to be possible. So give it a go and let us know what you see! :-)

@The-One-and-Only100 Ай бұрын

@Havron why odd peaks have you found that you thought was impossible I will certainly share my results, but simon also has a radiacode, and it would be intriguing to see a comparison of the source in the video and the Chinese smoke detector source as a benchmark

@chanheosican6636 17 күн бұрын

Cool video I assume Am241 doesn't contain any curium in smoke alarms or even trace? Correct me if I am wrong.

@SimonsNuclearchemistry 16 күн бұрын

Most likely they also do. 2 ways to get Americium: Recycle spend nuclear fuel (with Curium) or milk Pu-241 cow (without curium). Having a Pu-241 cow is damn expensive. And the fact that even a radionuclide meant for a nuclear lab isn't even made from a Pu-241 cow but from spend fuel... lets me suggest these cheap smoke detectors are made the same way.