Polonium from uranium ore (part 2) - practical nuclear chemistry

[@johnnysun6495]

Wow I just found this channel. A lot of videos to go through.

[@mewtwoinchernobyl]

I see Curie, I immediately like. Curie is the GOAT.

[@iACJ-13]

My friend has this Material! I didn't know it is so precious!

[@jansenart0]

You may or may not want to make these University of Cologne videos unlisted? I'm glad they aren't though.

[@SimonsNuclearchemistry]

They will stay online as long, as I am not forced to take them down :D I know this Polonium series got some dumb people on Reddit to do that at home but honestly I think by now I made it clear enough, that this shouldn't be replicated outside of a professional lab. And for anyone else with a functioning brain, its great knowledge ^^

[@SimonsNuclearchemistry]

all of my videos are checked by my professor (even the nuclear shorts) and if he says "no" or wants changes, I will correct them and will only post them if my professor thinks, thats something that can go into the internet :) [yes I made whole videos, that will never go online because by professor said so]

[@liamheath6355]

This is so cool! I think im gonna be on some kind of list after watching it tho 😃

[@mustang1na]

Hello, the mystery dark layer with high probability is platinum group metals and gold deposited on the surface of the silver sheet.

[@SimonsNuclearchemistry]

@@mustang1na tell me why they are present in Uranium ore :D?

[@mustang1na]

​@@SimonsNuclearchemistry First of all this is natural ore. Gold is often associated with uranium from mineralogy view so it is possible. I don't say there is a lot. Even at microgram amounts is enough to appear on the sheet. You can try to redisolve in aqua regia. I have PhD in inorganic chemistry, so this is my competent gues.

[@SimonsNuclearchemistry]

@@mustang1na maybe with XRF we could give it a try. Because if I even use conc. HNO3 the whole sheet is gone

[@mustang1na]

​@@SimonsNuclearchemistry there is other options, but i really guess it is higly probable. Maybe this is even more complex mixture, but i bet there is a enrichment of precious metals. Elements such as tellurium and bismuth are also candidate in this mixture. Regards, Martin

[@Neptunium]

how much of the uranium mineral "really" dissolved in the HCl solution ? would you say it`s fair to say there may be other isotopes on that "mystery layer" (5:44)? did the napkin removed "some" Po? probably not a lot though, Since it is likely there is a lot more than Po on the black layer, an unknown amount of Po could be buried in it and never produce a signal .. just rambling ! good video! Thanks

[@SimonsNuclearchemistry]

@@Neptunium the activity of the sample is so small, I couldn't detect anything else in the other measurments apart from Alpha. I did Gamma and X-ray spec. But nothing to be seen. We boild the living crap out of it and saw all the Uranium isotopes also deposited, which is a complete mystery for us. Because if it were in a water soluable Form we would have washed it of after deposition. So the most isotopes we could identify were Po-218,214,210 and U-238,235,234 and only with Alpha spec. We know for certain that the experiment works but anything above that, is so far, just educated guessing😅🥲 Nothing on the paper could be detected with the CoMo-170 plastic alpha scint. The sample doesn't contaminate things as much as other nuclides would. Which also let us believe I might really be metallic Po but who knows reallys😅 Thing whole thing might turn into some sort of Ex&Ire Cubane thing 😂

[@Neptunium]

@@SimonsNuclearchemistry lol!! Sounds like it ! I know Pa is a finicky metal with weird behavior too. . there is probably a lot more of it than Po right!

[@SimonsNuclearchemistry]

@@Neptunium Yeah ...but the Pa extraction from Uranium is quite well known and documented. There are even school experiment with the Pa-234m ;D (which I also am currently modifying) would love to explore some more Pa chemistry... there is so much stuff to do! If only the day had more hours.

[@yaykruser]

@@SimonsNuclearchemistryneed an assistant?😁

[@MarioRodriguez-ow9rl]

I mentioned you in a previous video that identifying the mineral composition is key for standard potentials, yield of reaction, etc. One way of knowing it is asking from which mine these ores were extracted and checking in mindat which minerals are present in that mine. But I think we can guess something from the chemical reaction. Silver is tarnishing in this reaction so the anion of the mysterious mineral is reacting with silver producing a insoluble salt, so it's not nitrate. It's not a carbonate either, as strong acidic solutions bubble CO2 away. Silver halides and sulphate are white, so they are not either. But silver phosphate is an insoluble brown salt. So it could be an uranium phosphate. If that's true, the redox potential should be calculated with the formation of silver phosphate. Another option would be it's actually silver chloride and the dark colour is due to polonium doping. In any case it's of key importance knowing the chemical composition of the uranium ore and knowing which one gives better yield for polonium deposition.

[@Curiescat-f5f]

Simon says like and sub

[@christopherleubner6633]

A better way to get the polonium out would be to ball mill uranium ore with charcoal then heat it in a high temperature retort. Have some silver foil in a tube that is cooled in the retort condensing tube. Polonium mercury arsnic and other volitile elements will stick.. For fun you can also measure the radon released during the process as well. If you like you can also recover the radium as well with dilute hydrochloric acid followed by cold vacuum filtering, reducing the volume, adding dilute surfuric acid and spinning it in a microcentrifuge.❤

[@juangarcia-nc6ur]

question! what does "Bq" mean? used in yield graphics

[@SimonsNuclearchemistry]

@@juangarcia-nc6ur one Becquerel (Bq) is one decay per second. Its the most common unit when it comes to describing how much of a radionuclide you have.

[@Tylerx-z]

Hello