Collecting a spent nuclear fuel fragment at Chernobyl

[overunitydotcom]

P.S: Can you feel the radiation, if you have this fragment on your finger tip ? Does it give some kind of tickling sensation on your skin ?

Many thanks.

Regards, Stefan.

[Thallium208]

@overunitydotcom There is no sensation from radiation at this low intensity.

[overunitydotcom]

I wonder how many atoms this small fragment have and why does it all radiate so long at all

these years. As each click on your geiger counter is probably one or more atoms splitted and releasing gamma or alpha or beta radiation, it surely must have trillions of atoms in this small piece, if it has 20.000 splits per second ??

otherwise after 26 years these splitting of atoms should have already stopped ? WHat half life

does it have ?

[Thallium208]

@overunitydotcom As the video shows, I estimated the Cs-137 activity to be ~40 microcuries, or 1.5 million decays per second. Sr-90 is the other major medium-lived nuclide present in spent fuel. It probably accounts for a similar activity in this piece, but emits no gamma rays. Both Sr-90 and Cs-137 have 30-year half lives.

[overunitydotcom]

Couldn´t you get skin cancer by placing this on your finger ?

What is the probability to get skin cancer for how long of an exposure to your skin of this hot

UO2 fragment ?

[Thallium208]

@overunitydotcom It's possible to get cancer, sure. A formal calculation of the risk would be too complicated to get into here, because it would entail modeling the shallow dose from poly-energetic beta particles.

[81lmc7101]

Great! I want to find something like this!

[MassimoC86]

Hi, Interesting video. Could you have shipped that little fragment to yourself in a lead container?

[tesla242]

Hi again, may I ask you where did you take the signal for the sound card in the Ludlum 12? I have the schematic of the instrument. Thanks!!

[Thallium208]

@tesla242 There are different versions of the Ludlum 12. Send me your schemat and I will label it with my mod or the equivalent.

[tesla242]

@Thallium208 Thanks Carl, just sent you an email to the gmail address published in your blog.

[Yakerina]

Why the word "particle"? Why not use the word "fragment" throughout? Thank you for this video!

[Thallium208]

@Yakerina I'm not conscious of any relevant difference in meaning, any reason to prefer "particle" over "fragment" or vice versa. Apologies for any confusion caused by the use of both. Thanks for watching.

[KarbineKyle]

WOW... That's a HOT particle! That would peg my CD V-700 6A! Nice Ludlum Geiger Counter! I would love to get a Ludlum, but they are pricy. I guessed it was probably Cs-137, with other fission products, like Sr-90, Y-90, or Ba-133. That peak on the gamma spectrometry shows the decay of Ba-137m doesn't it? I know it decays by isomeric transition, which is gamma. I don't have software like that, but it would be nice to analyze radioactive materials. Can you keep that particle? That would be cool!

[Thallium208]

@KarbineKyle Yes, Ba-137m is the daughter of Cs-137 responsible for the 662-keV gamma ray associated with Cs-137 decay. The PRA MCA emulator software is FREE! The rest of the gear is somewhat costly, but before the whole Japanese meltdown, was still quite affordable. There are ways to power a scintillation detector that don't involve the Ludlum ratemeter, if you're willing to do a little homebrewing. No, the particle got left behind I'm sorry to say. It would have caused lots o' trouble.

[marmaladekamikaze]

@Thallium208

were you wearing a dosimeter? I'd love to know your total man!

[urbanxphotography1]

Hi, facinating video, I had an extended stay at the Chernobyl Hotel in May, and visited reactor 5, so this blows my mind!

So.... what would happen if you swallowed that?

[Thallium208]

@urbanxphotography1 Probably not a lot, to be honest; you'd have some hot shit for a day and probably nothing more. Breathing it, though, is a different story. You don't want to do that.

[lexichronicle2]

Only 100 billion more pieces to go and Chernobyl's tidy again, GET COLLECTING! :D

[bionerd23]

wow. well done recovering that little piece - but then again, seeing how hot it was, it was easy after all if you've got patience and good eyes. :)

makes me wonder if one could transport the particle out of the zone in a human, hehe. you know, like they use to smuggle drugs - but instead, swallow a sealed up lead container with the particle. will that still be detectable? and if so, what will they do about it? bad boy, eating cherries in the zone... hehe, just a (BAD, BAD) idea.

[crnazvijezda]

Did you make output for computer sound card on a Ludlum detector?

Is this gamma spectrometry works with geiger probe?

This video inspired me to think about how I could use spectrometry!

Thanks,

[Thallium208]

@crnazvijezda Hi Tomy, the modification of the Ludlum unit was straightforward--it's an RC high-pass filter out to the BNC, which is sited in about the only place it can fit on the chassis. It comes off the third stage of the preamplifier, which happens to constitute a single 2N3904/2N3906 DIP chip. The sound card software is, of course, free and will work on any PC as far as I have been able to tell.

[vk2zay]

Love the poor-man's spectroscopy, I gotta build myself a spectroscopy rig like that.

[ALARAiswise]

Thats fantastic.

As hot as that fragment is it would have been many times hotter just after the accident.

The radiation levels back in 1986 are unimaginable. Scintillators and geiger tubes would have been useless. I bet even a cdv-715 would have been at fsd within 1km of the reactor.

Carl, when are you going to Fukushima ? You know you want to ! lol.

[Thallium208]

@ALARAiswise I will go to Fukushima as soon as someone gives me permission to be there!

[alfaradiation]

Great video, so tiny and so hot particle. I enjoy watching your videos, they are most educational. Are you still "in the zone", becouse I am looking forward for more videos like this. So I am curious are you allowed to walk around reactor complex and exploring the region? Do you also have personal dosimeter, becouse that would be interesting too? Did you check your boots with the geiger, are there any readings?

[Thallium208]

@alfaradiation Thanks for watching. No, not still in the Zone (these vids were made between July 12 and July 14, 2011), but I wish I were! Some areas are off-limits; it changes year to year. The NPP requires special permission. I don't use a personal dosimeter, although other people on my trip did. Contamination of boots / shoes seems unavoidable...they came back "hot" both this year and last year.

[Romenadan]

Wonderful video! I look forward to seeing much more from your trips to Chernobyl! It is amazing how much hotter a quantity of enriched fuel pellet is when compared to the same quantity of DU... quite an eye opener.

[Thallium208]

@Romenadan Although it is presumably enriched to a few percent U-235, the reason why this is so radioactive is that it has spent a long time in an operating reactor and has become "spent fuel." Spent fuel contains fission products like Sr-90 and Cs-137, as well as transuranics like Pu-239. It's much hotter than fresh fuel would be.

[tesla242]

Amazing video!!! this is nuclear archeology to me!

This is the first time I see a real hot particle, specially from this nature.

Great job, this video, straight to Favorites!

[Thallium208]

@tesla242 Thanks for your appreciation. Next time I go out there, I'm going to have to spend longer at the construction site--preferably with a better digging tool than my bare knuckles. Lots of goodies just under the surface there!

[10mintwo]

@tesla242 I agree with this. This is the only video (or for that matter, only image of any kind) of a fabled "hot particle" that I have ever seen anywhere. An enormous amount of ink (well, electrons anyway) has been spent on analyzing the various dangers, mobility and prevalence of these things in the literature, especially re Dounreay-like incidents, and yet this is the only time I have ever actually SEEN one. It's very nicely illustrative.

[10mintwo]

Mme. Curie said that nothing in life is to be feared, only understood. I fully understand, and yet I am still terrified.... :-)

Given the density of uranium, it is hard to imagine a particle of even that size being carried by the wind after having been sent aloft by the graphite fire. It must have been ejected as part of the initial criticality excursion and steam explosion. Remarkable.

Will you attempt to return to the US with it? That could be....interesting.

[Thallium208]

@10mintwo It probably got here after the explosion, but it could also have arrived on construction vehicles. As far as returning to the US with it, I think that's not difficult. The difficulty would be getting it out of the Zone, since the major checkpoint (Dytyatky) has a scintillation portal monitor. Semikhody or Parashiv are the better choices for exiting. Right now the particle is in an easy-to-find spot within the 30-km zone, if anyone wants to try getting out with it (let me know).