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Plutonium........

Question for the Nuclear Physicists among you! Come on Jake.....

Anyway Plutonium is highly radioactive and I once read somewhere that if you where in a small room with a pound of it you would be reduced to a puddle of water very quickly. Now in a completely separete article I read that someone held half a pound of the stuff in his hand! Simple Geezer that I am I'm confused. Can someone let me have the full sp, thanks!

R1Geezer Thurs 20/11/08 10:55

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RoaldoM
Thurs 20/11/08
11:38

I think someones been pullin your plonker R1. From Wiki:

Plutonium may be extremely dangerous when handled incorrectly. The alpha radiation it emits does not penetrate the skin, but can irradiate internal organs when plutonium is inhaled or ingested.[9] Particularly at risk is the skeleton, where it is likely to be absorbed by the bone surface, and the liver, where it will likely collect and become concentrated.

Considerably larger amounts may cause acute radiation poisoning and death if ingested or inhaled; however, so far, no human is known to have immediately died because of inhaling or ingesting plutonium and many people have measurable amounts of plutonium in their bodies.[33]

jake-the-peg
Thurs 20/11/08
11:49

Are you confusing Uranium with Plutonium.

I've stood and held a Unranium fuel rod ( before it went into a reactor not after!)

Plutonium is really nasty stuff - in addition to it's radioactivity it's highly toxic micrograms can kill if it gets into you.

There are different isotopes of Plutonium 239 is 300 times more reactive than 238.

Half a pound of Plutonium was used to power the Russian mars probe that crashed in Chile in 1996.

There was about a kilo in the Viking explorers.

See here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_ther moelectric_generator

It depends on the particular Isotope but I'd certainly rather cautious around plut

Teddio
Fri 21/11/08
10:15

Plutonium-239 is an emitter of alpha radiation. If a person is contaminated with Pu-239 dust, in the lungs for example, the highly ionising alpha radiation with cause great damage to the living cells and their DNA.
A small (below critical mass) lump pf solid Pu-239 presents much less of a problem.

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