Plutonium question.

[jdurg]

Heh. I'd put Pu up there with Zirconium in terms of its pyrophoric nature. With Zirconium, if it's in a powder form it's very likely to burn quite violently. In the form of the solid metal, it's actually quite stable. With plutonium, in a powder/sponge form it is very likely to catch fire. In a much larger solid-ingot form, it won't catch fire as easily but the intense amount of energy given off by the radiation will bring the temperature up to an amazing level and be quite deadly. For use in batteries and calibration needles, they tend to use PuO2 in order to avoid that pyrophoric problem. Pu is also quite colorful when in a solution. (As can be seen by that link I gave a bit earlier).

[jdurg]

Lets not forget that Plutonium can easily be rendered into a pyrohoric metal. Let it sit in the air long enough and it'll start making plutonium hydride' date=' a fun little pyrohoric substance. You'd be very unhappy if your sample decided to spontanusly combust, melt through your box, and release lots of fun oxides into the air.

 

Uranium will also burn in air, but it has to be given some activation energy. It's kinda like magnesium in that sence. The army loves making armor percing rounds out of it because it's heavy, hard, and burns on impact. The oxide dust it produces can also be very hazardous. It builds up in your kidneys and can give you all kinds of troubles.[/quote']

 

A huge reason for the millitary's love of depleted uranium is that it's so cheap and a byproduct of uranium refinement. Since they can get it for next to nothing (since it's considered 'waste' material in uranium enrichment) they decided to use it. In reality, DU is toxicologically more dangerous than it is radiologically. It's very hard, very dense, and will catch fire in a powdered form. (For use in DU bullets, they usually put a moderately sized layer over a lead or steel core. This way when the bullet impact, it's much easier for the DU to shatter and break into smaller pieces which will ignite very readily from the heat of the impact).

[mmalluck]

I just love the thought process our military demonstraights. "Hey guys, I've got a great idea! Lets spread our nuclear waste all over someone elses country side! If we give it the right slant, they'll love us for it afterwards too!"

 

/end political rant

[jdurg]

lol. Yeah, I can just imagine how the discussions went.

 

Government Official: "Hey guys, now that we've processed all this uranium for our bombs and power plants and submarines, what are we going to do with all this waste?"

 

Military Scientist: "Well, we could turn some of it into plutonium, but the rest of the world frowns on that. <whispers>Let's do that in secret</whispers>. For the rest of it, how are we going to deal with all that radioactive waste?"

 

Clumbsy Uranium Refiner: "Oh crap. I just opened up a can of the waste uranium and it suddenly caught fire! Is that bad?"

 

Government Official: "Hehe, it went BABOOM and caused a fire. huh-huh-huh. That's cool."

 

Millitary Scientist: "I just had an idea! Why don't we make bullets out of this waste? It would be dirt cheap since it's waste material anyway, plus we'll be able to get rid of our nuclear waste by vaporizing it over those damned middle-eastern countries. Who gives a crap about those people anyway? Sure we might cause cancer and various other problems to anyone involved in the war, but we'll have some pretty cool weapons and an easy way to get rid of our garbage!"

 

Government Official: "Heh-heh. Fire! Fire! Heh-heh. That's cool."

 

President: "So you guys have a way to get rid of nuclear waste, make effective weaponry, and have it cost us nothing? Sure. Go do it. NOW!"

 

[swansont]

Uranium's gamma radiation isn't all too high of an energy, so on a gram per gram basis it's not as 'hot' as plutonium is. Plutonium is just really nasty stuff.

 

Having a 4.5 billion year half-life helps, too, vs 24 kyears. Five orders of magnitude less activity right out of the gate.

[calbiterol]

Actually, as far as things tend to go, Uranium is relatively easy to enrich. A mild budget could do it, with chemicals readily available from a chemistry store - in a way completely different from the "Radioactive Boy Scout" did. Check out the arcticle at http://www.popsci.com/popsci/generaltech/article/0,20967,1017201,00.html .

[Sayonara]

Anybody else want to link this thread to that stupid boy scout?

[Gilded]

"(I.E. above a certain mass, it doesn't matter if it's depleted or natural uranium, you'll need a license for it). "

 

Btw, do you need a license in U.S. for ore-type of samples? I could have a ton of pitchblende on my backyard for "research or educational purpose" and no-one would care.

 

And for the uranium slugs, you wouldn't believe what amount of U armor piercing ammunition was left in the ground after battles in the Slovenia-Croatia-Bosnia Herzegovina region. You can even see it in the cancer statistics quite well, sadly.

 

And for the "fissile"... Never heard of it, never needed it, but it's quite nice for a word, so I'm going to use it.

 

"Anybody else want to link this thread to that stupid boy scout?"

 

Oh oh! I would! Although I did already. Bugger. And he's not stupid, he just endangered more people's lives than everyone on this forum put together (except maybe for YT, tehehee ).

[jdurg]

Uranium ore is no problem at all. This is because in order to extract any of the uranium or other radioisotopes out of it, you would need some VERY expensive machinery, a ton of chemicals, and a hell of a lot of space. It's not something someone can setup in their backyard and succeed with. (Or do without being noticed by the government).

 

Another interesting thing I read while looking up information about Plutonium is that they are finding the cancer rates in areas around Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Chernobyl to be 'higher' than typical, but not significantly so. Apparently the cancer rates they are seeing aren't much different than the typical rates found in people of that age and background. It's just certain types of cancers that are more prevalant than a normal population. Interesting data indeed. (I think in the next 15-20 years we'll start to get better data about Chernobyl. Next year is the 20th anniversary I believe (though my dates may be off) and the effects of the genetic mutations and cancers will start showing up in the children and grandchildren of those affected at the time).

 

Another neat thing that was read during my plutonium research was about how cavalier scientists are with depleted uranium. I guess the energy given off by the uranium is ridiculously low. They talk about how even when they enrich it the radiation levels aren't anything to be severely worried about. The big thing I heard was that a sample of uranium ore is far more dangerous than a sample of the metal due to the equillibrium with the daughter products in the ore. That makes me feel a bit safer about having my depleted uranium now.

[YT2095]

Uranium ore is no problem at all. This is because in order to extract any of the uranium or other radioisotopes out of it' date=' you would need some VERY expensive machinery, a ton of chemicals, and a hell of a lot of space. It's not something someone can setup in their backyard and succeed with. (Or do without being noticed by the government).

 

[/quote']

 

the principal is very easy!

but like many things, it`s easier said than done!

[jdurg]

the principal is very easy!

but like many things' date=' it`s easier said than done![/quote']

 

Exactly. With uranium ores, the vast majority of the 'ore' is waste material. It's like gold ore. You need to go through a ton of 'junk' before you get the stuff you want. So in order to take uranium ore and make uranium out of it, you need a prohibitively large amount of ore. (Smiley because that's a good thing. It prevents random idiots from making purified uranium).

[Gilded]

Actually, pitchblende (or uranium dioxide) is VERY rich in uranium (duh) and is usually found in rather large deposits. That's what Marie Curie refined his radium from (I recall it taking several tons to make 1g ). I wonder though, how much pitchblende it takes to make a small ounce bar of the stuff (uranium that is, I don't want to even look at an ounce of radium).

[jdurg]

Actually, pitchblende (or uranium dioxide) is VERY rich in uranium (duh) and is usually found in rather large deposits. That's what Marie Curie refined his radium from (I recall it taking several tons to make 1g ). I wonder though, how much pitchblende it takes to make a small ounce bar of the stuff (uranium that is, I don't want to even look at an ounce of radium).

 

Well, first off Marie Curie was female. (Yes those french/polish armpits can be deceiving, but there are other anatomical features that can distinguish them. ) lol. Anyway, there are some pitchblende samples which contain a massively high amount of uranium oxide in them. But on average, one can only expect to have about 10-11% U3O8 in their ore sample. So to get an ounce of uranium, you'll have to have about 304 grams of pure pitchblende. One also has to remember that you're not going to have a high purity sample all the time and there will most likely be a lot of other stuff. So on average I'd say that you'd need to have about a pound of pure pitchblende in order to get an ounce of natural uranium.

[J.C.MacSwell]

Are we still refining Uranium? How can we expect to make a bomb at this rate?

[williamtul11]

this guy sounds like a nutcase.

 

uranium slugs?

 

there are special bullets made out of depleted uranium do to its density. those rounds are used as armor peircing rounds

[John Cuthber]

Did you look at the date of that before you posted a reply?