Re: americium 241

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Jim Lux by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <jimlux-at-earthlink-dot-net>

Radioactive sources do work nicely with spark gaps to reduce the jitter and
stabilize the firing voltage. I don't know about how important this is for
TCs.  The traditional thing is something like Co60, a nice hefty gamma
emitter, or Ra, which you might be able to scrounge from old luminescent
dial paint.

Hmmm.... The old snag some Am241 from the smoke detector thing.. As it
happens, I've looked into those for a lot of possible applications (like
generating neutrons with a Be foil)

Some problems with the approach, some practical, some regulatory...

1) Not much Am241 in a home smoke detector: 1 microCurie... that's a bit
more than 24,000 disintegrations/second, but the emitted particles are
distributed in a sphere. At least half will go into the electrode or the
mount for the Am241, or into the Am241 itself, if it is more than 1 atom
thick.

2) Am241 emits alpha particles at around 5 MeV.. even so, alphas don't have
a lot of range, and are stopped by just about  anything.

3) You are trampling all sorts of state and federal regulations with
unauthorized use of radioactive material..Not that it's all that big a deal,
but something to remember when you come home from work and find the guys in
white bunny suits outside your house (my wife's particular fear...).  (Do a
web search for "radioactive boy scout" and you'll find an amusing story..)

http://hot-streamer-dot-com/temp/2001-03/NukeKidOnTheBlock.pdf

4) If you put the Am241 (or, more likely, you integrate that little aluminum
thing with the Am241 on it into your electrode) on the surface of the
electrode, it will probably be vaporized by the spark.  This is a "really
bad thing".  While alpha emitters are fairly benign, since anything
(including a few inches of air) stops them, if they get into your lungs,
it's bad news.... Plutonium is an alpha emitter, and the big hazard is tiny
Pu particles, not a big lump sitting there on the bench (assuming you don't
have Mcrit).

The furor about the radioactive sources on the Cassini space probe heading
to Saturn came from the risk that on the Earth flyby (last year), that a nav
screwup might put the spacecraft into the Earth's atmosphere in such a way
that the Pu240 pellets (encapsulated in a really tough ceramic/graphite
shell) might vaporize and that the truly small amount of Pu, so vaporized,
might result in a few extra deaths due to cancer over the next 40 years. (on
a launch mishap, or a range safety destruct, the pellets would just fall
into the ocean, and they are pretty darn inert).

It has been theorized that one of the reasons cigarette smoke (secondary or
primary) is such a potent carcinogen is that the tiny ash particles tend to
carry omnipresent Radon or Thorium daughter products (from decay of
naturally occuring minerals), typically alpha emitters, into a sensitive
part of your body (your lungs). (This is aside from any chemical
carcinogenicity effects).


----- Original Message -----
From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Saturday, January 05, 2002 6:59 PM
Subject: americium 241


> Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>"
<RQBauzon-at-aol-dot-com>
>
> i was wondering if by attaching a chunk of americium 241 to my spark gap,
i
> could aid the ionization process thus yielding a higher break rate? or
would
> that just be defeating the purpose of quenching?
>
>
>