Substances NOT To Be Messed With ...

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MiM
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Re: Substances NOT To Be Messed With ...

Post by MiM » Thu Dec 05, 2013 7:10 pm

Those earlier flames made me think; What about if it had been Cs-137 in that tube? A pretty effective dispersion device, I bet. Cesium likes to mimic potassium in biological systems, so while it's not actually building up, it's biologically nasty enough.

Have to correct you, Calilasseia on the radioactivity of Bismuth. The Bi isotpes 212 and 214 are naturally abundant, as short lived daughters of Uranium decay. Especially Bi-214, together with Pb-214, are the isotopes that deliver the dose to human lungs from indoor radon, so this is not an insignificant question. And the relationship between activity and half life isn't "less publicised", but obvious to anyone working in the area.

Otherwise, yes. Co-60 is nasty and it is very good that the Mexican authorities behaved completely responsibly, and issued a global warning, even though they where able to regain it within days, very close to where it was stolen.

Most interesting is that the source was pulled out of its shield and "tossed" out on a field, very close to where it had been stolen. The question is whether the thieves panicked, or if they originally wanted to steal only the shield. Radiation shields for strong sources are commonly made out of depleted uranium. ...Now what else might a shield of depleted uranium conceal :ask:
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Re: Substances NOT To Be Messed With ...

Post by JimC » Thu Dec 05, 2013 8:27 pm

Interesting information, Cali...

Cobalt 60 is one of the radioactive sources I use with a geiger counter in a physics experiment with the lads. A tiny amount, of course, sealed in a plastic disk. We keep it and the other sources in a lead lined box, which gets opened once a year for this particular prac...
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Re: Substances NOT To Be Messed With ...

Post by Mysturji » Fri Dec 06, 2013 2:17 pm

Calilasseia wrote:...(see, for example, mercury fulminate, whose name alone tells you what it's like)...
They used that in "Breaking Bad" :heisenberg:
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Re: Substances NOT To Be Messed With ...

Post by Seth » Fri Dec 06, 2013 9:48 pm

Mysturji wrote:
Calilasseia wrote:...(see, for example, mercury fulminate, whose name alone tells you what it's like)...
They used that in "Breaking Bad" :heisenberg:
Yeah, and then Mythbusters busted the Hollywood excess by testing the explosive effects of mercury fulminate of the size supposedly used by the character.
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Calilasseia
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Re: Substances NOT To Be Messed With ...

Post by Calilasseia » Fri Dec 06, 2013 11:49 pm

50 grams of Mercury (II) Fulminate would be enough to propel bits of you in opposite directions at about twice the speed of sound. Much smaller amounts are used in blasting caps to set off gelignite etc. With a modern chip slapper detonator, you probably need about 0.5 grams.

Mind you, some of those wacky substances the Klapötke Lab is cooking up, make Mercury (II) Fulminate look like soap powder. You know you're dealing with something special when one milligram of your test substance is enough to destroy a Raman spectrometer.

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Re: Substances NOT To Be Messed With ...

Post by Tero » Sat Dec 07, 2013 1:52 am

Pretty neat stuff for 1830s. Ideas about structure and bonding were just developing.

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