Szilard Chalmers effect with Bromoform - nuclear chemistry

The Szilard-Chalmers effect describes the simple isomeric separation following neutron activation, demonstrated here using the example of bromoform :)
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0:00 The plan
0:47 Experiment
3:48 activation of Bromine
4:49 Szilard-Chalmers
6:34 practical advice
7:11 results
8:10 additional analysis
10:49 Bye :)
#radioactivity #nuclear #chemistry

[@galliumgames3962]

Congratulations on beating your scintillation speedrun PB.

[@loiman4179]

I adore the notion of nuclear chemistry

[@apo_chromatic]

A synthesis of a perbromate salt via decay of a selenate salt would make for a very cool video, though I’m not sure how feasible it would be.

[@SimonsNuclearchemistry]

Nice thought but impossible as the recoil of that decay shoots the daughternuclide out of the molecule (and we can't synthesise visible amounds of anything pure radioactive)

[@maestr0play316]

Great bro

[@piroDYMSUS]

Amazing work!

[@betadecay]

great!!

[@bdnugget]

you are cool

[@MyProjectsTV]

What happens with the positive bromoform ions? Couldn't they react with the ammonia or something?

[@kevinlcarlson]

Would it be practical to synthesize Bromoform in the lab?

[@SimonsNuclearchemistry]

Could be possible but none of us wants to do that (I suck when it comes to organic) and we have a certain Budget to spend on chemicals^^

[@OmegaPaladin144]

The main route is the haloform reaction, and that requires bromine - probably more difficult to obtain.

[@apo_chromatic]

@@OmegaPaladin144I mean bromine is made fairly easily, so I’d say that you could easily make bromoform from hardware store chemicals

[@yaykruser]

Awww, the neutron source again ❤ How dangerous is 10m neutons/ second/cm2 ? What if I hold it in my hand? And what in all the world is a gamma reaction 😰

[@SimonsNuclearchemistry]

10.000.000 neutrons? Last time someone checked it had 20mSv/h but the Details are lost to history. Health wise wouldn't be great but not with long term effects BUT the ass beating you'd get from the Professor would definetly have long lasting effects on your health xD "n,gamma" is just a neutron capture. There can't be a nuclear reaction that is "just a capture". I went into detail about nuclear reactions in seminar no. 12 :D

[@yaykruser]

@@SimonsNuclearchemistry 🤣 Ohh, awesome , I will watch that! 20msv? O.O how was it prepeared and inserted? And wont I turn radioactive myself if I hold it and thereby increase my dose?

[@SimonsNuclearchemistry]

@@yaykruser nah you won't become radioactive. Your Hand its mostly H,N,O,C and the All suck at neutron activation. It was bought in the 60s. So there has been some dude whos job it was to weigh out 0,5g of Americium for us xD but it can be carried in very thick lead Containers if its really necessary.

[@yaykruser]

@@SimonsNuclearchemistry half a gramm of Americium?! Thats 60billion becquerel or 2million of our smoke detectors 😵 Is it detectable ouside of the wax block? Too bad that I wont turn radioactive, I was hoping to confuse archaeologists in 20.000 years when the c14 tells them that I should still be alive 😅

[@SimonsNuclearchemistry]

@@yaykruser xD yes you can measure neutrons and gammas even at the doorframe of the room.

[@uxleumas]

Why doesn't CHBr2+ recombine back with the radioactive Br-? How is Br- extracted into the aqueous layer? What replaced the negative charge? OH-?

[@SimonsNuclearchemistry]

The first question is a question of concentration. Once shot out, the probabilty for the CHBr2+ to combine with a water molecule is waaay higher than actually finding a lost Br- Via a the ammonium ion as scavenger thats electrostatically attracts the rad. Br- into the aq. Phase. Most likely yes, as the Ammonia reacts as a base forming OH- Ions.

[@user-pr6ed3ri2k]

is there a list of every single neutron activation reaction known

[@SimonsNuclearchemistry]

Yes. There is a whole data base for it: JANIS WEB

[@jonmarquez128]

Ever heard of Radium Bromide

[@midi5581]

Nice, I have everything needed except the neutron source, how to get one? Is Am241 from smoke alarm + Be foil a sufficient source? I am currently using that source with bismuth to make ~3 atoms of polonium per hour.

[@SimonsNuclearchemistry]

Prolly not even. You can't build a neutron source from Smoke detectors. One of these has like 17kBq of Am-241. Our "weak" Neutron source has 65.000.000 kBq. And Neutrons at home is not something anyone would want.

[@CATASTEROID934]

Even with the entire box of 40-50 old but high-activity detector boards I inherited (that someone thought appropriate to go into a waste container destined for landfill and someone else thought appropriate to retrieve and stash in my childhood bedroom) with their relatively spicy 40 microcurie Am-241 emitters (as marked in the electropenciled details on the pretty robust steel shield encasing the buttons) fresh out the factory you'd likely still struggle to produce a useful source for anything practical. Beyond having neutrons stinking up your home as mentioned above that is. They weren't terribly hazardous but honestly of all the dangerous trash I took with me when I moved out my parent's place they didn't come with me, they probably went into landfill anyway, hope to god they didn't go in an electronics recycling wastestream to contaminate a bunch of scrap. The fact the source they used in the video is hot enough to warrant being imprisoned in concrete and further deserving to languish in a pit suggests it's the type of thing that's going to be perennially out of reach for an amateur. I'll add that I once entertained that thought in a moment of boyish foolishness and found that even small sections of Beryllium foil were unreasonably expensive and the thinner the foil the more expensive it got, it's not exactly known for it's workability, and it's likely got even more expensive in the many years since then, I don't suggest trying to accumulate enough Am-241 sources either since all the good spicy ones are in older or specialty products that don't pop up in the second-hand market often and again are expensive and the sample itself tends to be a tiny speck dwarfed by the button it's mounted on and I'd wager that they're exceedingly easy to lose. I won't chastise you for the safety factor, seriously considering improvising a neutron source suggests you're willing to take that risk, though I must again state it's a lot of money for what will almost certainly be a qualitatively present (if that's your goal) but impractically quantitative source that will likely disappoint.

[@James-xu3vc]

What is the most extreme example of nuclear transmutation-affected chemical bond known to man? ❤

[@SimonsNuclearchemistry]

Idk. The coolest thing I know ot Manganese flying out of the permanganate Ion when activated.

[@James-xu3vc]

I wonder what Mercury does when it is radioactive ☢️? Does it's melting temp change?

[@SimonsNuclearchemistry]

@@James-xu3vc there are some slight differences in physical properties but at the mass of Hg, I don't think there will be a noticable change

[@Dmayrion2]

Would the gammas not also free the non-radioactive bromines, or do they preferentially interact at their source?

[@SimonsNuclearchemistry]

Nah possible but negliglible as they are so high in energy (several MeV) that they fly through pretty much everything without interactions

[@MrNosterp]

I belive the gammas almost always cause ionation if they interact at all, otherwise they fly right thru.

[@wilhellmllw3608]

🫡🫡🫡

[@kingnotail3838]

Is there a reason why the odd-numbered isotopes (35 and 37 for Cl, 79 and 81 for Br) are stable whilst the even-numbered isotopes are radioactive? I may have learned this once upon a time, but if so it was a long time ago and I can't remember now!

[@SimonsNuclearchemistry]

Yes. Its Mattauchs Rule (dedicated Video to it on the channel ;D). Br-80 has a uneven number of neutrons and uneven proton number. Nucleons prefered to be paired so having both unpaired is not stable. It would much rather convert one of its protons/neutron into the other one, to have both as even numbers. 80 is a even isobar (even nucleon number) and on even isobars there are most often two stable nuclides sandwiching an unstable. Because you can get "80" either from 38+42 or 40+40... both even/even which are the stable nuclides. Or from 39+41... the unstable nuclide being sandwiched