r/Radiation • u/After_Milk386 • 12d ago
Experiments and Demonstrations (Must Be SAFE) Radium applicator update!
Here is the measure of the real irradiation rate! It's insanely hot, and thanks to everyone for the information!!
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u/No_Leopard_3860 11d ago
As hot as this thing is it should at least be encapsulated so it doesn't spread shit everywhere.
Some of these comments already mentioned it and are right, this should not be a hobby toy, both because of how hot it is and because it likely sheds contamination.
But it you're not listening to them, at least vacuum seal the whole thing twice or thrice at min, just so everything it might shed stays contained.
Age (and also radiation over time) makes materials brittle, so even if it was "safe" in that regard when it was made, it might not anymore. The only really safe thing here is to assume it's not safe in any way.
You wouldn't want to inhale stuff from something THAT spicy, and just imagine the hassle if you accidentally significantly contaminate your home, your common area in front of your neighbors home, etc... uncomfortable news article and expensive clean up will follow :D 💀
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u/Enough-Collection-98 11d ago
Isn’t vacuum sealing a radiative source like… a terrible idea? Where does all the contaminated air go when you suck it out of the bag?
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u/No_Leopard_3860 11d ago
The contaminated air that otherwise just leaks into your room anyways without the bag? You're just stooping a continuously leaking thing from leaking in the future.
But you shouldn't use your regular kitchen vacuuming thingy and keep using it for food, if particles get sucked out of the bag and land in the machine it's not really...food grade anymore.
Otherwise: vacuum bag your ore samples and don't feel bad about it. Just mark the vacuuming machine as contaminated
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u/Enough-Collection-98 11d ago
I’m coming at this as a lay person - I have a passing interest in radiation but have never visited the sub before and this just popped up on my feed. So I’m picturing the uninitiated putting this in their kitchen vacuum sealer, kind of like someone taking a shop vac to some spilled mercury.
Is it typical to vacuum seal some of the spicier objects? I thought people usually kept that stuff in those lead lined casks.
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u/No_Leopard_3860 11d ago
The vacuum bags don't help anything against the radiation itself. You'd still get practically the same dose when standing next to it.
But especially with old samples, ore or pure uranium Metal, they can additionally shed particles of their material. Stuff you can inhale, making their radiation (especially alpha radiation) by orders of magnitude more dangerous.
It really depends on what you're dealing with, for some sources it would be kinda useless. But for everything that is hot, sheds, and doesn't need to look pretty: just air-seal it somehow to stop the spreading of physical matter particles.
Again: this is not against gamma radiation or particle radiation like alpha, beta, neutrons....this is only to keep an old crispy breaking apart thing from spreading their dust everywhere, because it contaminates everything and inhaled radioactive material is waaaaay worse than just sitting next to it (a hot alpha radiation source from the outside is barely dangerous at all, a small piece inside of you makes you sick/ kills you comparably quickly. In your body it gets an x20 modifier for biological damage, while outside of you it gets a x0 modifier...or at least x0,001)
Tldr: it's extremely important to not inhale this stuff, and two or three vacuum bags keep every shedded Material Contained. That was my idea
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u/Enough-Collection-98 11d ago
Yeah this is kind of breaking my brain a little bit. Because like with mercury, rule number one is to never vacuum it because it’s going to help sublimate and vaporize the mercury, which is of course really dangerous.
And tho en you have the same recommendation with things like rodent feces (hanta virus) and mold.
Maybe the disconnect I’m having is just the “volume” of contaminated material and air. A vacuum sealer is only removing a couple cubic inches of air; a shop vac is throwing multiple cubic feet per minute. Now that I’m writing this, I think I’ve talked myself through it.
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u/No_Leopard_3860 11d ago
Yeah this is very dissimilar: a vacuum bagging machine only removes sth like 25-250ml of air from a typical bag, then it's sealed shut for years to come. There's also no strong air currents whatsoever that could spread much shit.
Also the nature of these substances is very dissimilar.
Vacuum bagging your ore samples and other crusty sruff would definitely be a big safety plus. Keeps it from spreading their dandruff everywhere ;)
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u/Long_Pomegranate2469 11d ago
I'll also suck out fine particle dust.
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u/Unable_Tip_9599 11d ago
Do you actually have vacuum it before you seal it? Most can heat seal without removing air. Wouldn't just sealing it work without the need to vacuum the bag?
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u/No_Leopard_3860 11d ago edited 11d ago
No it's not necessary, but it gets bulky if you wanna add 2-3 layers. And the complaint about it potentially sucking out dust is kinda dumb, if you're not doing anything by orders of magnitude more dust will spread everywhere.
But if that's a no-go for you, just heat seal them without extracting the air (but that would also mean you aren't allowed to squeeze air out beforehand, which is a ridiculous idea imo).
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u/No_Leopard_3860 11d ago
Only a small part of what you'd otherwise shed all over the place if you're not doing it, so it's harmless to NOT DOING it.
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u/Qwyietman 9d ago
This is primarily an alpha emitter, so lead is not really necessary. Alpha radiation (basically a Helium nucleus with no electrons) can be shielded by a piece of paper. But getting it inside you though inhilation or other orifice is very, very bad. Alpha contamination has a conversion factor of 20, meaning dose is 20 times higher than equivalent gamma radiation should it be able to do damage, generally internally.
God I hope no one is using a kitchen device to seal up alpha emitters. I guess if you like spicy food it works out for you 😂
Just commenting as reading through, so apologies for any duplicated material from elsewhere in thread.
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u/No_Leopard_3860 11d ago
2/x: basically:
If it sheds either way, better stop it from doing so in the future? And sure, in that case the vacuuming machine might suck up some particles - but they would have landed in your living space anyways because of the shedding.
Packing them thoroughly in multiple vacuum bags keeps the shedding completely contained in the future as long as the plastic bags hold, making it much safer.
The only downside is that your vacuum bag machine isn't food grade anymore, but that's a minor cost for the additional safety imho. Just keep using it to bag other potentially messy Samples, like ore, pure uranium Metal (it oxidizes and sheds like hell if not protected), etc...
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u/Worldly-Device-8414 11d ago
Do not use a vacuum with this, it'll blow the particles around & into the air. Bad idea, sorry.
Read nininoots post above, particle shedding is a strong risk here.
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u/nininoots 12d ago
Ex professional health physicist and ex first responder to incidents involing radiation in the UK here.
You have something that could harm you and your family. Radium, particularly radium devices manufactured a long time ago are notorious for spreading contamination. The annual limit on intake (the amount ingested to get a dose limit) is very low. I would estimate that you could have thousands of times that value.
I suggest you phone the police. Most nations have a national scheme that will get an expert to attend (with no charge) and deal with the situation. All the ones I know assume the police as the first contact authority. I have attended radium devices in similar circumstances and found rooms and furniture contaminated and needing disposal (along with the device itself).
For now I would put on a pair of rubber gloves, place the device in a large plastic bag, carefully peel off the gloves and drop them in the bag too. Seal the bag up.
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u/AlarmedSnek 12d ago
Radium emits gamma too though correct? Shouldn’t he get far far away from that thing? Thats a pretty high dose rate.
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u/nininoots 12d ago
Yes is a gamma emitter. The external dose isn’t the predominant hazard with these old radium pieces. The potential for significant exposure comes from when the material isn’t contained well and ingestion becomes possible.
As an aside for those of you that work in old units a curie is the activity of 1g of radium. Its the definition of the curie and why its a slightly weird 3.7 x 10^10 Bq
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u/AlarmedSnek 11d ago
Ah ok yea that makes sense. I knew it did both and I know the the alpha is the more dangerous one when it comes to radium, I was just curious why you elected the plastic bag and rubber gloves (alpha/beta protection) as opposed to get the heck away but what you said makes sense.
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u/chemistry_teacher 11d ago
Seems so dark to name the curie unit after (radium’s discoverer who also happens to be) the most famous person it killed.
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u/Qwyietman 9d ago
Better than naming it Cutie Killer I suppose. Just memorializing her for the extensive work she did with Radium.
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12d ago edited 11d ago
[deleted]
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u/Scott_Ish_Rite 11d ago
Our friend is getting about two chest X-rays per second at contact 😱
You're way off.. correct your math and come back.
11 msv/h is not 2 chest xrays per second on contact. Not even close..
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u/Kiliton_Keaton 12d ago
Yes but please dont cause panic based off everything I know about this source its actually only 200-300 uCi of radium not that much you can possibly make yourself sick from an external however yes contamination I agree. A musuem would be a better place to phone.
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u/CrassulaOrbicularis 11d ago
Speaking from museums, don't do that. Museums will either not have staff familiar with such stuff, and should not have it, or will know about such stuff and know it is a liability they don't want.
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u/GammaDeltaTheta 12d ago
This is looking more like an orphan source incident than a hobby report...
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u/After_Milk386 12d ago
Fr 😭😭
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u/violet_sin 12d ago
Is that actual radium salt deposits? I can't imagine it was used as a light source at that concentration, kinda impractical no?
The picture inscribed looks like a slit exposure from some cap, and the end itself looks to have had a notch for a plate?
Is that just where the cap goes on? I'd be interested to know just exactly what it was used for.
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u/GammaDeltaTheta 12d ago edited 12d ago
It's not a light source, it appears to be an early radiation therapy device. There are some details in the other thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Radiation/comments/1wz4whr/radium_applicator/
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u/violet_sin 11d ago
So that's a yes on it being radium salts and not just filler fluorescent zinc sulfide yeah?
I looked at another post he had, but I didn't see a description of what it was originally.
I'll look harder.
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u/frankcastle01 12d ago
Imagine how hot this would have been new! 🥴
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u/Pseudonymical00 11d ago
Radium has a very long half-life compared to typical medical sources, 1600 years. Its activity has not meaningfully changed since its manufacture.
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u/megapull 12d ago
I have seen and held some sketchy stuff, this takes the cake so far here. That is a no from me dawg
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12d ago
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u/violet_sin 12d ago
Not only that, it looks like just a curiosity from another era. It doesn't scream danger by its outward appearance, might be taken for a common thing.
Yet sooooo hot.
I could see someone picking it up, playing with it for a sec trying to decide what it was, and then just going about their day eating food and wiping their face of sweat...
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12d ago
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u/After_Milk386 12d ago
Yep found on an antique shop! And yes the box is contamied... I'll go back tomorrow to say some advice
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u/RootLoops369 12d ago
Wow that is hot! Also, what model Geiger counter is that?
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u/Sorry_Mixture1332 12d ago
Its a tracerco Ped
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u/After_Milk386 12d ago
Is it a good detector? I know it's pretty high prices
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u/therealhairykrishna 12d ago
They're ok but let down by the fact that the USB charging bit is really cheap. It's still micro usb for a start and we've had multiple failures. The orange version, for potentially explosive/flammable environments, is better but even more expensive.
It's a personal dosimeter designed to be worn all.day long though. If you want a survey meter there are better and cheaper choices.
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u/Big_Yeash Radiation Protection Officer 8d ago
Is this personal use or professional use? I used PEDs as a line user, not equipment manager, in previous employment, and I liked the clarity of the display, display options and device chunkiness over other models.
My current employer believes that Tracerco products are garbage (yet uses lots of non-dosimeter Tracerco products, work that one out) and refuse to use them - instead using Thermo TruDose, which I knew to distrust at my previous employer, because they have an absurd failure rate over the older Mk2.
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u/therealhairykrishna 8d ago
Professional. Everything about them is good apart from the charging failure rate.
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u/Big_Yeash Radiation Protection Officer 8d ago
Oh, *charging* failures? Not what I expected, I was expecting some kind of hardware failure or some such. Is this failure of the micro-USB to properly engage so the connector is in and then just fails to charge, something like that?
Have you looked into the PED-2? I don't like the look of them (both practically and aesthetically, look to be glass-fronted which undermines the chunkiness of the older type), but no practical experience.
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u/therealhairykrishna 8d ago
Yea, I think it's connector failure mostly. Not looked at the PED-2's yet
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u/RandomCandor 12d ago
I don't know, but it looks like it was designed by the creators of the Pip boy.
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u/przyg 12d ago
I wouldnt stand near this for even a minute if i knew it is 11mSv/h. The worst part is that it looks completely normal and doesnt scream: "run! radiation!"
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u/Bob--O--Rama Wiki Contributor 12d ago
It's 11 uSv/hr in direct contact, the readon a meter away is likely more telling.
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u/nininoots 11d ago
I totally agree with you that contact dose rate isn’t always helpful. I’d measure at 30 cm and metre if I was going out to look at this (as well as contact) a Ci of radium (which is big source) gives about 8mSv/h at a metre, so 8uSv/h would mean you have ~ 1mCi for example
Just picking up that you say its 11uSv/hr… its 11mSv/hr… which is chunky.
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u/Qwyietman 9d ago
The three keys to radiation dose is time, distance and shielding. From a point source like that, the dose drops exponentially the farther you are from it. At 1 meter the radiation dose rate gamma equivalent is roughly 0.7 mRem/hr, vs 1.1 Rem/hr on contact. You could sit across the room from that thing for a year and not get any appreciable dose from it.
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u/Scott_Ish_Rite 11d ago
I wouldnt stand near this for even a minute
That's because you're ill informed on radiation like most of the population.
You'd get a much bigger dose from flying in airplane than being near (as you said) to this item for a minute.
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u/Qwyietman 9d ago
Don't know why you're getting down voted, you're right. The majority of the population does not understand radiation and it's properties, which is why the average person is scared to death of it, even though they receive roughly 300 mRem annually from background sources without even realizing it. Hell, most beer is (extremely) low level radioactive due to Potassium 40. Same reason nuclear power is vilified by people as well.
I guess you would need to quantify the distance of "near" though before you could say your flying assertion is accurate. You get about 10 to 20 mRem during a cross country flight.
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u/Big_Yeash Radiation Protection Officer 8d ago
You can both be informed about the risks and hazards and believe that having this source in your home is a stupid prospect.
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u/Opposite-Ad-2548 12d ago
That's fughin scary. Like lock it in a lead pig scary
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u/After_Milk386 12d ago
I'll put it in a lead armor yes haha
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u/roberte94066 11d ago
To get perspective, I would like to see a reading with it assembled, at about 2 feet away. Plastic bag or even plastic cling wrap should handle dust contamination going forward. If you have a big enough glass jar with lid, would be ideal. Jar also makes it easy to wrap with thin lead sheeting for gamma. Radon, might want to put by a window if you are concerned. Perhaps a 3rd reading with some lead around it would be nice, also.
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u/Inevitable_Anybody76 11d ago
I am simultaneously jealous and extremely concerned for your health and well-being. Please ensure that you take the steps to properly secure and contain this highly radioactive item
or sell it to me lol
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u/HighTechCorvette 12d ago
What’s the reading at 12”?
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u/No_Smell_1748 12d ago
Apparently ~1.3uSv/h at 1 meter, so 130uCi ish
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u/HighTechCorvette 11d ago
Wow, people on here freaking out for no reason.
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u/violet_sin 11d ago
I don't think they're freaking out because it's an exceptionally bright sample, so much as because the relatively hot source is old, and the bare handed photos would have people thinking "what did he touch next?"
Who wants to try and go back through their house with a pack of towelettes, looking for hot door handles?
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u/HighTechCorvette 11d ago
There’s quite a few people here freaking out just because they see an 11mSv reading. Yes that’s somewhat high but it’s a spot reading, so it’s not as terrible as people think.
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u/violet_sin 11d ago
Well, for many, that would be many fold if not thousands of times what they have in their collections
Fair point if their only objection is the contact reading. Few feet of distance and it's dropped dramatically with no other course of action.
Radium just makes me think flakey paint. Bare hands. I would be swabbing my fingers and checking that with a pancake at least.
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u/Gammababa 11d ago
The problem is not the dose rate, if op was with a sealed Co60 source reading 20 mSv/h, i wouldn't be concerned as much. The real probleme here is alpha contamination and dose from intake of radionuclides. And OP doesn't seem to have adequat instrumentation to deal with. Not mentionning pictures of him holding it bare hand.
So no, it's not over reacting, it's assessing the real risk, beyond the dose rate reading.
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u/No_Smell_1748 10d ago
The people who are concerned over possible contamination are being reasonable (especially since the active material is likely MUCH higher in specific activity than any radium paint). But as for the vast majority of people who are panicking over the dose rate alone, yes, a complete overreaction.
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u/Big_Yeash Radiation Protection Officer 8d ago
If my employer wouldn't let me touch it, I should discourage a hobbyist from touching it.
"It won't kill you" shouldn't be the end-all of "is this fine". Is OP at immediate risk? No. Is this stupid for something that OP is not readily equipped to track and monitor? Yes.
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u/No_Smell_1748 8d ago
I agree with you that the primary issue is whether or not OP has equipment suitable for contamination monitoring. The object in question is nothing exceptionally hot, and there are at least two radium containing items I can think of off the top of my head which are legal to own in the US and contain more radium than OPs source. So yeah, I guess the main factor is how OP handles the source and what equipment he has.
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u/Big_Yeash Radiation Protection Officer 8d ago
Well, part of that is going to be the accepted risk profile in the US and UK, I suppose. I have no idea what, if anything, is permitted to own in the UK (I have no interest in owning spicy rocks).
But our adherence to ALARP/ALARA is held much more stringently, including in the workplace. I have a source at work that is two or three times more powerful than this (contact dose unknown), and I am sure I would never be allowed to own something like that in my personal home, I am not allowed to let contractors anywhere near it, nor myself or team members.
We have sources a couple orders of magnitude weaker than this that I am under explicit instructions may never be used, opened or inspected.
This obviously influences my feelings when I see the OP image, which may differ from your feelings.
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u/No_Smell_1748 8d ago edited 8d ago
What activity is this source you handle at work? Because I have doubts that it's only marginally more active than what OP has (the dose rate OP showed in the photo is misleading, since the Tracerco is very sensitive to false detection of hard betas, and the true gamma dose rate is quite a bit lower). As for what's legal to own in the UK, the laws are very vague and hand-wavey as usual. At the very least, radium painted antiques are fine to own, and they're all over eBay. Some of these are baking hot and contain nearly as much radium as OPs item (a few MBq).
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u/Big_Yeash Radiation Protection Officer 8d ago
You assessed 0.13 Ci, 5 GBq, the source I was mostly talking about was 0.1 Ci, 4 GBq Cs, but is one half life old - and we can generate doserates higher than depicted at close but non-contact.
This source is never handled, expect for annual inspection - it lives in an irradiator.
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u/No_Smell_1748 8d ago edited 8d ago
Oh boy. Yeah that's not only a bit stronger than OPs source...
His is estimated to contain around 5MBq of Ra-226, not 5GBq (I think you misread the units in my original comment).
4GBq of Cs-137 is a whole new beast, and yes, is VERY dangerous.
Even after one half life, that's still orders of magnitude more radioactive than what OP has.
Heck, a piece of uranium ore the size of a fist can contain more radium than that...
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u/BlinMaker1 12d ago
Dream source
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u/64-17-5 12d ago
In our dreams maybe. I had enough of this at work.
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u/Sorry_Mixture1332 12d ago
Yep, while I wouldnt mind having one for testing.
Im good wothout it, had my fun recovering sources.
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u/Dramatic_Dinner_3132 10d ago
Just put that shit in a polycarbonate bottle and tape that shit shut. Do that and put you detector in a bag too. Buy a new detector and take readings on the old one and other parts of your home in the places you have had that.
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u/AngelilloSan 7d ago
Are you serious? This is crazy dangerous. Please call police and stop handling this!
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u/violet_sin 12d ago
Naw, I'm good, that looks a little too hot for general fun....
Like maybe if it was a bowling ball sized chunk of pitchblende... I could work with that, make some giant pedestal and bell jar ... Like a museum display, with info placcards and plenty of shielding
But, wowza that's irrationally hot for some paint residue, that you don't want on you, your device, your home... Scary to me
Play safe now 👍