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Got plans to build a diode based unit from the CERN educational website, comes with a database to calibrate readings. Just waiting on the board and parts. Just got the emitter when the detector failed, so figured why not? I also noticed, they're using the same circuit that was used to detect smoke around 40 years ago, but the emitter's about 1/3 the size. I'll also be building a cloud chamber, got some old kitchen storage containers that have broken lids, so why not? Order a 4 cm heat sink, got some blue freezer charged cool packs to cool it, some hot water on the top bin to give the heat differential. At least until I can build a chiller...
In Australia, we are allowed to put no more than 10 radioactive smoke alarms in our bin at once. If we have more than 10, we have to treat them as radioactive waste, or alternatively put the excess units in a different bin. There is no limit when placing them in a neighbour's bin.
Careful there my friend, you say that too loud, they might come and try to get it canceled from the period table of the elements for being inherently racist and not inclusive of the other elements... ;)
What's really interesting is when you rip one open but keep it powered, and then put an oscilloscope on the output of the detector section. You can literally see the voltage levels drop as air gets more and more blocked by particles like smoke. That in itself isn't particularly astonishing, but then when you think of that crazy shower of particles flying off the Am241 sample getting interrupted by teeny tiny bits of carbon in the air causing a high voltage ionized air path to disrupt... Yeah... it's just totally cool. :-)
I recently got some old radium watch hands, and a small sample of ThO2 for my element collection. The watch hands don't glow brightly, but if I let my eyes adapt to the dark for an hour, I can see the super dim glow, with crazy sparkling all over. For the ThO2, I bought a ZnS(Ag) screen to place on top, and it is also a super dim and sparkly light show. This is another cool way to visualize alpha radiation, although it is unfortunately difficult to capture on camera.
I love that as well when I can't sleep l like to watch my old alarm clock spark and shimmer i never realized how relaxing and mesmerising ionizing radiation could be.
☣☢ Darn it! He just said its unsafe for a person to either swallow an americium sample or to attach it to your skin with a bandage.... But what else am I supposed to do with it!? Oh well, I guess I could just place it in a slot inside my element collection. But I REALLY wanted to swallow it! 😁
@@sb-cz7fk That's a great idea! I remember they used to sell these fake "ghost dog" leashes at Spencer Gifts, that gave the appearance you were walking an invisible dog. You could simply shrink the collar down from 8" in diameter to 8mm, which would fit seamlessly around the Americium disc! Walking a tiny disc of uncommon radioactive material attached to a goof dog leash seems like an incredibly logical and constructive way to spend my time!
@@HighlanderNorth1 sounds like a fantastic idea ! I mean they say walking a dog is a great way to make new friends and meet cute people so I wonder what walking a trans uranium metal around will get you.
Truly one of the only good science/chemistry based TH-cam channels left on TH-cam. My own channel doesn't even add up to near the greatness of this channel. Thank you for not selling out or changing to get more views like most other science based channels have done. Keep up the great work!
Cody'sLab Explosions&Fire + Extractions&Ire TheThoughtEmporium NileRed Chemical Force StyroPyro Applied Science NightHawkInLight They're just the ones that come to my mind, some are based purely on science, some are mainly science projects. None of them make clickbait like this channel has come down to as I see. Combined with the hard to watch lip desync and having learned in school and youtube just about everything he has to say I'm reassured in not watching this anymore. Thought Emporium has his own video about cloud chambers, and it's that device that allows for visualising radiation, Americium is just an example source you can put in the chamber.
It's amazing what your doing here. Very few other chemistry channels I've seen talk about the radioactive elements in such detail and in a captivating way!
Very good! I couldn't wait until you would upload. I watched in Russian first because of being very impatient. Your chemistry videos are excellent. 👋 from 🇨🇿
Agreed, I was hoping he would've found a way to increase the concentration of the vapor inside since he said it wasn't dense enough to show everything. Was my favorite part of the video.
@@JWolff-md3ij a tub of hot water on top will add to the concentration. Gotta get the felt for the one I'm building out of a couple of broken kitchen storage containers, they're 4 cm square units, cut the bottom out, goop and tape the two together keeping the bottom on one, fill the top with hot water and the bottom can have either dry ice or just blue cooler gel poured and taped into a heat sink for the bottom unit to rest upon.
I came to know about application of Americium during a project. Americium was used there to determine thickness of the metal sheet. It was amazing to know how the radioactive property is used to determine metal thickness. Your videos are really informative and useful. Thank you.
If you open a source chamber on a smoke detector stop when you see the tiny piece of gold. The Source is safe to handle at this point. It is still in a protective and shielded container with only the one window. The ionization chamber (cover) makes a great cap to control radiation. I always store mine above head level pointing upwards. Alpha radiation is used industrially to control static. I used to play with a source used during newspaper printing to control static cling.
I'm incredibly fortunate to have toured the 'back end' of the TRIUMF Research Particle Accelerator at UBC. When I toured I was in an area that was still contaminated with radioactive oxygen which had blown about. They had mostly cleaned up however you could also see black smudges of contaminated Carbon on the ventilation system. That's what you can do with a chem degree and a girlfriend whose father worked there for 20 years. :D (I didn't get a job when I applied, sad)
You’re the one that got me into chemistry, I had zero interest in this subject since I only cared about physics but you’ve sparked something big in me. Thank you for all that you do, I hope you make a lot of money off these videos.
I went to Griffith Observatory today. They have an exhibit there that showed something I had never seen before that really intrigued me. It showed a cloud chamber and a spark chamber detector and they were being used to detect secondary cosmic rays. And then I come across this video later today purely by coincidence that showcased the same type of cloud chamber and the spark chamber detector. I don't know what to think now...
This was fascinating! I saw my first cloud chamber on TV back in the very early 60's on a Mr. Science type show. My whole life I have wanted my own cloud chamber, and yours looks quite attainable. Thanks for the facility tour, also. I've wondered what happens to old smoke detectors. A truly wonderful science channel.
I really want to build a cloud chamber, it was awesome to see these things flying around. I saw one for the first time last year and while that one was professionally made, even a well build amateur one can be very cool. I have my 99% IPA sitting on my shelf waiting until I get the rest of the materials. I just really don't have the time unfortunately.
With a RTG, it will last longer using a longer half life element, but at a much lower power density, that's the trade-off - you need a much larger and heavier unit.
Great video. I used my home smoke detector to check my first Geiger counter before getting a test source and some uranium ore samples which I use now. I never saw a spark detector before, thanks for the all your effort in making yours work.
If I'm not mistaken, also, alpha particle emission takes place over a range of energies depending on several factors so some can penetrate paper. (Also the type of paper is a factor too)
Great video as usual, but I have to contest one important thing. 9:15 - 60 keV X-rays (or gamma technically in this case) definitely aren't "safe". The TVL of soft tissue to 60 keV photons is like 11-12 cm/~4.5". Basically, 1/2 will penetrate at least 3.5cm/1.5", and 90-99+% will be absorbed by the body, and they are definitely highly ionizing in tissue. At 4uSv/hr, at that distance, you'd probably have to wave that thing over someone for a year in order to generate enough to make a single chest x-ray, so I'm not suggesting that it's dangerous to handle, but yeah, 60 keV is right in the middle of the range that penetrates enough to damage tissue, but not enough to pass right through. If you generate enough 60keV photons you basically have a perfect x-ray machine.
@@Reptex_cs It isn't likely to cause any harm at those levels. That's why I said it's not unsafe - quantity-wise. The quality/energy level of the radiation, however shouldn't be characterized that way. It's probably irrelevant to 99.9% of people in any situation they are likely to even encounter. Just that, to say 60 keV photon radiation is harmless is exactly the opposite of true. It gets slightly complicated... For radiation safety guidelines we use a linear non-threshold model. That means we take levels with known harmful effects and assume that, for instance, 1/1000th of that is 1/1000th as harmful. We know that's not true based on epidemiological data that we have - low levels up to a few 10's of times normal background *may* even be slightly beneficial - but it's the standard practice for regulatory purposes to assume "no safe dose". Also, If you ate it 🙄, kept it near your eye for a long time, or carried it in your pocket every day... You might increase risk of cancer, cataracts, or fertility issues respectively. Honestly probably still not, but having no respect for it isn't a good approach is all I'm saying. Or if you got 1000 of them and tried to extract the Am (someone did that) - that'd be dangerous. It's hard to communicate radiation health physics effectively. That's why everyone is (wrongly) afraid of nuclear power.
It would be ironic if the only reason some facilities were top secret in the past was because the officials didn't want the world to see how irresponsible dangerous materials were being handled.
It seems like the Americium sample could also be used to recharge the battery or power smoke alarms, but we're forced to buy disposable devices which don't allow the battery to be replaced. More planned obsolescence.
Not nearly enough americium for that. Adding that much would be insanely expensive and would give regular people access to dangerous amounts of nuclear material.
I have also taken the button out of a smoke detector to do experiments with orchids and cacti. You can glue the button to a copper wire and position it on the flower of a plant to try and create new breeds. Radiation breaks apart the DNA in exposed pollen when you are fertilizing manually with a paint brush so the seed that forms can be a mutant plant. Most are infertile or die after germination but I've created a few new orchids that have leaves that grow like a corkscrew. Pretty neat.
Thank you for providing an actual true explanation for how lightning is formed by ionization of the air. It makes far more sense now how lightning is formed by this process. Also your demonstration was great enjoyed this, Thank you.
I used to build ionisation chambers, never built a spark chamber. I used a tin can (any beans can will do), with one side open, and the other side closed with an insulated plastic disk. The can is traversed by a rigid copper wire, and about -100 V floating, applied between the can and the wire thru a 10 MΩ resistor. Used four 22.5 Volt batteries in series. The chamber is connected to the gate of a FET transistor with a very low gate current like JFE2140. This dual FET has 10 pA gate current, but there are some FET with a 2 pA gate current - if you can find them. On the drain of the FET you need to connect an OP AMP amplifier and an integrator as low-pass filter, and connect it to an oscilloscope. The FET and the amplifier must be powered by a separate battery. If the FET is OK, this chamber work any time. Think that this chamber works much better with an high gain dual triode (ECC83) if you know how to design with vacuum tubes, especially tube differential amplifiers. Thanks for the outstanding video. Greetings, Anthony
oh why he got dislikes! This channel taught me about almost every element in the periodic table. Great explanation. This channel must get more support❤️
What to do with Americium, take #2: 1)Get a bunch of ionising chamber detectors. Scrape off the gold layer. If Am²O³ stays on the plate, skip to step 4). 2)Seperate Am²O³ from gold by dissolving it in a drop of acetic acid or melting off the gold. 3)Reduce Am (|||) from oxygen, turn it into hydroxide or just heat it to dry out. 4)Dissolve it in small drop of acetic acid, then in diluted citric acid and put in the syringe with a long, strong needle. 5)Travel to Altai Pukin',s unofficial castle residence. Find his favourite wine or other sour beverage. Bribe the distributors of this beverage to let you deliver them. Lace the bottles with Americium by injecting it equally trough corks. 5)Sit back, and enjoy the irony..
Great video! Thank you! In 1000 years, archeologists will find our nuclear deposits and think we had giant radioactive batteries that predate the first ones by a hundred years. Similar to how some believe the pyramids could have been giant batteries, when they were probably just waste storage facilities! LOL Kidding, but funny to think about.
Interestingly enough it is that 60kev gamma emission from Am241 that is used to detect weapons grade plutonium contamination by proxy in the environment since detecting alpha emitters directly is more complicated. Weapons grade plutonium contains Pu241 which decays to Am241.
Thank you ! I love your vids , I am an idiot , But your accent reminds me of my old chemistry / geometry teacher She was a defect of USSR, super smart and could explain stuff very well just like you !
Can you please provide the link to the site with the 3d step files for the spark detector? This episode is a very interesting contribution. Thanks for making us smarter!
To be honest, I wasn't expecting a whole lot from this video. It's in smoke alarms...what else can you talk about?? But it turned out to be one of the most interesting and favorite videos from you! I've seen Cloud Chambers before, but have never made one...I need to try this! That was fascinating seeing the atomic particles shooting thru the mist vapor! Thanks so much for such a cool presentation.
The radioactive boy scout, David Hahn? I'd wager to bet that he had heard a lot about him. Everyone in this field of study has. But he used far, far more than just smoke detectors. He even ended up with a lot of radium compounds that he also used.
He was also collecting old clocks to get the radium when he found an old clock that had a bottle of radium paint inside it so he hit the mother load with that one clock.. every nerd knows all about the radioactive boy scout
He didn't actually build a nuclear reactor, this is a common misconception. David Hahn was trying to build a breeder reactor, a breeder reactor is a reactor that makes more fissionable material than it uses.
I use a gadget at work that utilizes amerericium 243 to detect water content. The machine uses cesium 137 to determine density. Its called a Nuclear Density Guage. The technicians that use these must standardize daily due the decay.
8:11 Americium-241 decays into neptunium which decays also releasing a tiny bit of gamma radiation. So yes, your smoke alarm at home releases a little bit of gamma radiation right into body every day! Nothing too harmful though.
Oh, pro tip for the cloud chamber. You want high percentage ethanol or isopropyl alchol, 90% being best. Otherwise, one can have trouble getting enough to supersaturate the chamber.
This was an episode where I had to mute the sound. (I cannot stand the sound of smoke alarms. I have never been able to.) But of course I wanted to learn about Americium, especially since we use Ionisation Fire alarms in Australia so I used subtitles. Very informative.
Funny, a year ago or so, I ordered an Am241-based smoke detection module just to test my cloud chamber. (and it did work). You did it the other way around, starting from the smoke detector :-)
I liked this channel, all videos and content were recorded amazingly. Nice teamwork. I am using these videos for my students to increase their curiosity or chemistry. Keep it Up
Very interesting. Thank you Thoisoi2 for this knowledge. And for the brief view of your homeland's solution to the clean up of a nasty radiation hazard left on your land. 🖖🏻🍻🥓
Americium is still important in research. I wonder why they'd dispose of the smoke detectors instead of refining the Americium out of them? It's got to be cheaper than making new material?
If I had to guess, I would believe they don't yet recycle them is price. Similar to trying to refine the gold from circuit boards, it costs more to remove and purify it than it's worth, though in the future it may be viable.
Fun fact:1960's smoke alarms are so radioactive that normal geiger counter fails to detect the radiation and also uses Radium and gold instead of a Americium 241
Thank you for the video, i got my ionchamber today via aliexpress, as soon as i bought it it was no longer avaible, allso got an email from aliexpress for a potentialy hazardous material, still it managed to get through all the customs. Now i will power on my 3d printer and build that chamber. cant wait to try it.
This is interesting .. I was recently was messing around on the bench with an AM241 source in a light tight aluminium box, aimed at a piece of 'glow in the dark' tape and a photomultiplier tube fashioned as a scintillator, hoping to detect the NP237 decay and log the probability with a computer. I was never certain why it simply didn't work at all.
I just love this video... I don't know why I'm being kept from commenting on it but have you made a video about Cobalt?!... So why are you 🚫 ing me...I don't know if this will get through. Oh it did thank you YT! 😊 all the comments that were originally supposed to be there are there now reposted he said!
The next one was : Hello is it working now? I just want to say something nice to you guys, and then this Samsung microphone just circled and circled there and nothing! you posted the video so I'm gonna watch it if you don't want people to watch these videos then don't put them up because people are going to comment and say goodwork sir ...now can you explain to me the usage of cobalt in the medical field and then i would finish by saying, thank you again. This my friend is called an interaction between active sleeves is that OK with you? let me know if I said something wrong and don't get paranoid. I love this video thank you for posting it TH-cam. I see now that you do not censor this type information. I'm very surprised to see tbese ros posted! I wanted to say thank you again Sincerely I thought you would never have this stuff posted online... One more time now...thank you for not censoring these videos. Thank you that's the way it's supposed to be. This is how people learn things no matter who it is... You post a video that people are going to watch, and people are going to comment on, and it's to tell the guy *thank you at least* you did an excellent job sir, good day. So I had to find another microphone that worked because I guess you didn't want me to post on here or something I'm sorryou're or something I'm sorry if I said something wrong I really am I'm trying to find out what I said wrong so I'll never do it again please work with me so I'll continue with this post and then I said is that why I had or am having trouble with my microphone. So I. So I had to switch to another one, let me try and go back and use my old original microphone again - - - no - - the Samsung microphone keyboard does not work here. So I leave with my last warning 🛑we use this type of information only to protect from and learn of its dangers...please use caution and beware and don't perform any of these experiments ...hes right about the radiation of tc99m but it's used only in health medicine. I have now tried to curtail my language in this paragraph to where maybe they will allow it to be posted... I don't know what I did or said earlier that was wrong... I didn't use any cuss words and never reference kraynianU's at all in my post... I even spelled it differently so thank you... I'm trying to work with you guys...I really am. thank you.
OK so my friend said this is what he said : hello is it working now ? Next sentence he said, I just wanted to say something nice to you guys and then this Samsung microphone just did circles and then nothing nothing. The next sentence he said: you posted the video so I'm going to watch it! if you don't want people to watch these videos then don't put them up because I'm going to comment and say to the guy : you did goodwork and can you explain to me the usage of Cobalt in one of your future medical videos thank you. Now this my friend is called an interaction between 2 sleeves, is that Okay with you? let me know if I said something wrong and don't get paranoid please. I love this video, thank you for posting it. (Technetium 99m comment )TH-cam I see now that you don't censor this type of information I'm very surprised to see that these videos are posted I want to say again thank you sincerely this is how people learn things no matter who it is that is reading it. You post a video that people are going to like and watch and they are going to probably comment on it and at least say *thank you at least* You did an excellent job sir good day. Next time can you comment on cobalt... So I had to find another microphone that worked because I guess you didn't want me to post on here or something… is that why I had or I'm having trouble with my microphone. So I had to switch to another one, let me try and go back and use my old original microphone again - - - no - - to ask to ask to Samsung microphone keyboard does not work here. that's what I tried to do, but you wouldn't let me for some reason I know there must be a word or a comment or something I said and I said and here that's not allowing it to be posted or something is it the cobalt word or something I have no idea but I don't know so I had to switch to and let me try and go back and use my old original microphone and then I'm changing microphones and i say hello do you hear me, there you go, my microphone starts working. so I was gonna try and translate this and then they said OK we don't want him to translate it into Russian so just let him post this comment and they let me post my comment in english. So is that what it was? Could you please tell me if that's what it was please...you don't want me to translate it into Russian? I'm sorry, I won't do it then...I'm sorry please I'll never do that again, I sense some paranoid or something in TH-cam, oh my God dudes I'm not doing anything wrong, you guys posted the videos the videos are pretty good. I'm surprised you posted it that's why I'm wondering why you're not getting so paranoid about it my commenting
I know you won't delete my comment I know you will like reading this so I think you should read this you know who I am that was from my friend they wouldn't let this one be posted either I have no idea why. Please somebody tell me was there anything foul or cuss language or referencing other people from other countries in here or some kind of battle or something that maybe I shouldn't mention you please tell me what was in those words that made it to where it didn't post on my common here
In the next sentence I said I just wanted to say something nice to you guys and then the Samsung microphone just circled and circled there and nothing you posted the video so I'm going to watch it.
Well now we know you are not a science nerd virgin.. there was an attractive young lady helping you tour an old soviet building that was clearly not into the video subject but into having fun with you in an old building tour. Gods bless her young happy soul and you together. Warms my old heart to see young love.
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I bought one a year ago after seeing it on youtube. It works really well and the spectrum analysis in the android app is really interesting!
Got plans to build a diode based unit from the CERN educational website, comes with a database to calibrate readings. Just waiting on the board and parts.
Just got the emitter when the detector failed, so figured why not?
I also noticed, they're using the same circuit that was used to detect smoke around 40 years ago, but the emitter's about 1/3 the size.
I'll also be building a cloud chamber, got some old kitchen storage containers that have broken lids, so why not? Order a 4 cm heat sink, got some blue freezer charged cool packs to cool it, some hot water on the top bin to give the heat differential. At least until I can build a chiller...
In Australia, we are allowed to put no more than 10 radioactive smoke alarms in our bin at once.
If we have more than 10, we have to treat them as radioactive waste, or alternatively put the excess units in a different bin.
There is no limit when placing them in a neighbour's bin.
Why do you have so many?
@@kitemanmusic It's just for good measure.
What about shared bin of an apartment block?_
Your Neighbor....😡😠☢️
"... Neighbor bin..." hahahahahha
This is the most American metal I've ever seen
From the Estonian mad scientist guy.
Especially since its used to tell fire to go fuck itself.
Careful there my friend, you say that too loud, they might come and try to get it canceled from the period table of the elements for being inherently racist and not inclusive of the other elements...
;)
oh my god the comedy 😂
@@chaosreigns7386 it is! racist priveledged metal
What's really interesting is when you rip one open but keep it powered, and then put an oscilloscope on the output of the detector section. You can literally see the voltage levels drop as air gets more and more blocked by particles like smoke. That in itself isn't particularly astonishing, but then when you think of that crazy shower of particles flying off the Am241 sample getting interrupted by teeny tiny bits of carbon in the air causing a high voltage ionized air path to disrupt... Yeah... it's just totally cool. :-)
What a brilliant documentary. Your content is consistently fantastic.
I recently got some old radium watch hands, and a small sample of ThO2 for my element collection. The watch hands don't glow brightly, but if I let my eyes adapt to the dark for an hour, I can see the super dim glow, with crazy sparkling all over. For the ThO2, I bought a ZnS(Ag) screen to place on top, and it is also a super dim and sparkly light show. This is another cool way to visualize alpha radiation, although it is unfortunately difficult to capture on camera.
I love that as well when I can't sleep l like to watch my old alarm clock spark and shimmer i never realized how relaxing and mesmerising ionizing radiation could be.
☣☢ Darn it! He just said its unsafe for a person to either swallow an americium sample or to attach it to your skin with a bandage.... But what else am I supposed to do with it!? Oh well, I guess I could just place it in a slot inside my element collection. But I REALLY wanted to swallow it! 😁
@@HighlanderNorth1 he never said anything about making a fetching hat out of americium sources or walking around with one on a leash as a pet.
@@sb-cz7fk
That's a great idea! I remember they used to sell these fake "ghost dog" leashes at Spencer Gifts, that gave the appearance you were walking an invisible dog. You could simply shrink the collar down from 8" in diameter to 8mm, which would fit seamlessly around the Americium disc! Walking a tiny disc of uncommon radioactive material attached to a goof dog leash seems like an incredibly logical and constructive way to spend my time!
@@HighlanderNorth1 sounds like a fantastic idea ! I mean they say walking a dog is a great way to make new friends and meet cute people so I wonder what walking a trans uranium metal around will get you.
Truly one of the only good science/chemistry based TH-cam channels left on TH-cam. My own channel doesn't even add up to near the greatness of this channel. Thank you for not selling out or changing to get more views like most other science based channels have done. Keep up the great work!
I agree, but don't sell yourself short, kiddo.
Spam comment. There's other comments with this same copy paste.
Cody'sLab
Explosions&Fire + Extractions&Ire
TheThoughtEmporium
NileRed
Chemical Force
StyroPyro
Applied Science
NightHawkInLight
They're just the ones that come to my mind, some are based purely on science, some are mainly science projects.
None of them make clickbait like this channel has come down to as I see. Combined with the hard to watch lip desync and having learned in school and youtube just about everything he has to say I'm reassured in not watching this anymore.
Thought Emporium has his own video about cloud chambers, and it's that device that allows for visualising radiation, Americium is just an example source you can put in the chamber.
I don't care about your channel.
But I love your channel too......don't sell yourself short.
It's amazing what your doing here. Very few other chemistry channels I've seen talk about the radioactive elements in such detail and in a captivating way!
Very good! I couldn't wait until you would upload. I watched in Russian first because of being very impatient. Your chemistry videos are excellent. 👋 from 🇨🇿
The tracks through the ethanol vapour are beautiful!
Agreed, I was hoping he would've found a way to increase the concentration of the vapor inside since he said it wasn't dense enough to show everything. Was my favorite part of the video.
@@JWolff-md3ij a tub of hot water on top will add to the concentration.
Gotta get the felt for the one I'm building out of a couple of broken kitchen storage containers, they're 4 cm square units, cut the bottom out, goop and tape the two together keeping the bottom on one, fill the top with hot water and the bottom can have either dry ice or just blue cooler gel poured and taped into a heat sink for the bottom unit to rest upon.
I came to know about application of Americium during a project. Americium was used there to determine thickness of the metal sheet. It was amazing to know how the radioactive property is used to determine metal thickness. Your videos are really informative and useful. Thank you.
Top shelf visual explanatory lectures. Much appreciated.
If you open a source chamber on a smoke detector stop when you see the tiny piece of gold.
The Source is safe to handle at this point. It is still in a protective and shielded container with only the one window.
The ionization chamber (cover) makes a great cap to control radiation. I always store mine above head level pointing upwards.
Alpha radiation is used industrially to control static. I used to play with a source used during newspaper printing to control static cling.
Excellent shots you've captured here. What lens do you use for the tight macro shots?
Hi, I use Tamron 90mm f2.8 macro.
@@Thoisoi2 doesn't radiation damage the camera sensor ?
@@destiny_02 Good question! Would love to hear an answer as well.
@@destiny_02 The alpha radiation emitted shouldn't be able to but the secondary gamma radiation might.
@@destiny_02 Place a high Quality bromined glass so the radiation dosen;t affect the camera
I'm incredibly fortunate to have toured the 'back end' of the TRIUMF Research Particle Accelerator at UBC.
When I toured I was in an area that was still contaminated with radioactive oxygen which had blown about.
They had mostly cleaned up however you could also see black smudges of contaminated Carbon on the ventilation system.
That's what you can do with a chem degree and a girlfriend whose father worked there for 20 years. :D (I didn't get a job when I applied, sad)
You’re the one that got me into chemistry, I had zero interest in this subject since I only cared about physics but you’ve sparked something big in me. Thank you for all that you do, I hope you make a lot of money off these videos.
Thoisoi is back on his English channel after a month.
Still faster than Nillered
@@Thoisoi2 and Chemical Force
Edit: Now I am very regret about my comment.
@@Thoisoi2 😂😂
@@Thoisoi2 Still better than Nile Red, too.
Nilered was uploaded a video 5 mins ago.
Videos like this remind me why I subscribed to thoisoi in the first place👍🏽
I went to Griffith Observatory today. They have an exhibit there that showed something I had never seen before that really intrigued me. It showed a cloud chamber and a spark chamber detector and they were being used to detect secondary cosmic rays. And then I come across this video later today purely by coincidence that showcased the same type of cloud chamber and the spark chamber detector. I don't know what to think now...
This was fascinating! I saw my first cloud chamber on TV back in the very early 60's on a Mr. Science type show. My whole life I have wanted my own cloud chamber, and yours looks quite attainable.
Thanks for the facility tour, also. I've wondered what happens to old smoke detectors. A truly wonderful science channel.
I really want to build a cloud chamber, it was awesome to see these things flying around. I saw one for the first time last year and while that one was professionally made, even a well build amateur one can be very cool.
I have my 99% IPA sitting on my shelf waiting until I get the rest of the materials. I just really don't have the time unfortunately.
@@dsandoval9396 and I have all the time in the world...
incredible... another awesome video about an every-day-appliance i never bothered to think about
really glad i found this channel in the past!
Americium, the United State's response to the dread alloy known as Stalinium
Good joke lol
My Grandkids are about to get educated by knowing more science and chemistry by watching your channel.
With a RTG, it will last longer using a longer half life element, but at a much lower power density, that's the trade-off - you need a much larger and heavier unit.
And a whole lot more of the element :D
Great video. I used my home smoke detector to check my first Geiger counter before getting a test source and some uranium ore samples which I use now. I never saw a spark detector before, thanks for the all your effort in making yours work.
If I'm not mistaken, also, alpha particle emission takes place over a range of energies depending on several factors so some can penetrate paper. (Also the type of paper is a factor too)
A particularly good episode this, thanks for all the hard work you've put it to it, ^oo^
Great video. Lots of important information!
I've been wanting to see a video on this subject for a long time.
Waiting for you to complete your playlist on Elements.🙏🤩
I want one of those crazy Plutonium 238 smoke alarms. :D
Bleh, I want a cobalt-60 burglar alarm.
Dude just showed up at an ex-soviet nuclear waste disposal facility and they give him a tour.
Nice
Great video as usual, but I have to contest one important thing. 9:15 - 60 keV X-rays (or gamma technically in this case) definitely aren't "safe". The TVL of soft tissue to 60 keV photons is like 11-12 cm/~4.5". Basically, 1/2 will penetrate at least 3.5cm/1.5", and 90-99+% will be absorbed by the body, and they are definitely highly ionizing in tissue. At 4uSv/hr, at that distance, you'd probably have to wave that thing over someone for a year in order to generate enough to make a single chest x-ray, so I'm not suggesting that it's dangerous to handle, but yeah, 60 keV is right in the middle of the range that penetrates enough to damage tissue, but not enough to pass right through. If you generate enough 60keV photons you basically have a perfect x-ray machine.
If it takes a year to resemble a typical chest X-ray, isn't that safe enough?
@@Reptex_cs It isn't likely to cause any harm at those levels. That's why I said it's not unsafe - quantity-wise. The quality/energy level of the radiation, however shouldn't be characterized that way. It's probably irrelevant to 99.9% of people in any situation they are likely to even encounter. Just that, to say 60 keV photon radiation is harmless is exactly the opposite of true. It gets slightly complicated... For radiation safety guidelines we use a linear non-threshold model. That means we take levels with known harmful effects and assume that, for instance, 1/1000th of that is 1/1000th as harmful. We know that's not true based on epidemiological data that we have - low levels up to a few 10's of times normal background *may* even be slightly beneficial - but it's the standard practice for regulatory purposes to assume "no safe dose". Also, If you ate it 🙄, kept it near your eye for a long time, or carried it in your pocket every day... You might increase risk of cancer, cataracts, or fertility issues respectively. Honestly probably still not, but having no respect for it isn't a good approach is all I'm saying. Or if you got 1000 of them and tried to extract the Am (someone did that) - that'd be dangerous. It's hard to communicate radiation health physics effectively. That's why everyone is (wrongly) afraid of nuclear power.
It would be ironic if the only reason some facilities were top secret in the past was because the officials didn't want the world to see how irresponsible dangerous materials were being handled.
Secrecy has the purpose to avoid and negate responsibilities of individuals in a bureaucracy. That's why we live in such miserable times.
oh the irony abounds my friend.
Don't know how I missed this channel all these years. I've only been following for a few months and you always deliver excellent, consistent content.
It seems like the Americium sample could also be used to recharge the battery or power smoke alarms, but we're forced to buy disposable devices which don't allow the battery to be replaced. More planned obsolescence.
Not nearly enough americium for that. Adding that much would be insanely expensive and would give regular people access to dangerous amounts of nuclear material.
@@Ithirahad If you give those people enough nuclear material, they will become irregular. The problem is self-resolving.
Thank you, Sir!
You are a remarkable scientist.
14:17 Our man has created minilightnings. Hence, he'll be known from now on as Thorsoi2.
🤔😆
Thoisoi2*
I have also taken the button out of a smoke detector to do experiments with orchids and cacti. You can glue the button to a copper wire and position it on the flower of a plant to try and create new breeds. Radiation breaks apart the DNA in exposed pollen when you are fertilizing manually with a paint brush so the seed that forms can be a mutant plant. Most are infertile or die after germination but I've created a few new orchids that have leaves that grow like a corkscrew. Pretty neat.
Truly amazing video. You always make great videos, but this was exceptional. Keep up the good work.
Thank you for providing an actual true explanation for how lightning is formed by ionization of the air. It makes far more sense now how lightning is formed by this process. Also your demonstration was great enjoyed this, Thank you.
I used to build ionisation chambers, never built a spark chamber. I used a tin can (any beans can will do), with one side open, and the other side closed with an insulated plastic disk. The can is traversed by a rigid copper wire, and about -100 V floating, applied between the can and the wire thru a 10 MΩ resistor. Used four 22.5 Volt batteries in series.
The chamber is connected to the gate of a FET transistor with a very low gate current like JFE2140. This dual FET has 10 pA gate current, but there are some FET with a 2 pA gate current - if you can find them.
On the drain of the FET you need to connect an OP AMP amplifier and an integrator as low-pass filter, and connect it to an oscilloscope. The FET and the amplifier must be powered by a separate battery.
If the FET is OK, this chamber work any time. Think that this chamber works much better with an high gain dual triode (ECC83) if you know how to design with vacuum tubes, especially tube differential amplifiers.
Thanks for the outstanding video.
Greetings,
Anthony
oh why he got dislikes! This channel taught me about almost every element in the periodic table. Great explanation. This channel must get more support❤️
I am a computer science major and don't understand most technical details about chemistry, but your videos make it so easy to understand. Thank you.
Love your videos bro I have learned so much from watching your stuff. Thanks.
The tour of the Estonian radioactivity disposal site was a very welcome surprise. Thank you!
Happy to see new element videos :)
your videos are so well explained and produced.
I can see you put lots of work into each one.
I'm really grateful for your work!
What to do with Americium, take #2:
1)Get a bunch of ionising chamber detectors. Scrape off the gold layer. If Am²O³ stays on the plate, skip to step 4).
2)Seperate Am²O³ from gold by dissolving it in a drop of acetic acid or melting off the gold.
3)Reduce Am (|||) from oxygen, turn it into hydroxide or just heat it to dry out.
4)Dissolve it in small drop of acetic acid, then in diluted citric acid and put in the syringe with a long, strong needle.
5)Travel to Altai Pukin',s unofficial castle residence. Find his favourite wine or other sour beverage. Bribe the distributors of this beverage to let you deliver them. Lace the bottles with Americium by injecting it equally trough corks.
5)Sit back, and enjoy the irony..
Great video! Thank you!
In 1000 years, archeologists will find our nuclear deposits and think we had giant radioactive batteries that predate the first ones by a hundred years. Similar to how some believe the pyramids could have been giant batteries, when they were probably just waste storage facilities! LOL Kidding, but funny to think about.
So much better now we have a face for the voice.
That 1 million subs is so close its exciting.
As expected ,
above the level🤩👍
Just love your vids on chemistry.
Interestingly enough it is that 60kev gamma emission from Am241 that is used to detect weapons grade plutonium contamination by proxy in the environment since detecting alpha emitters directly is more complicated. Weapons grade plutonium contains Pu241 which decays to Am241.
Amazing demonstrations
Wow! Thank you very much for the video!
*i found the homemade alpha particle detectors quite fascinating!*
😎🇺🇸
Thank you ! I love your vids , I am an idiot , But your accent reminds me of my old chemistry / geometry teacher She was a defect of USSR, super smart and could explain stuff very well just like you !
I love your content. I’m actually shocked you don’t have more subscribers. The level of detail you go into it great.
wow,very fascinating!! best education channel, thank you!
great channel , one of rare people whose english gets worse while speaking it more often ..... great work , love it
Can you please provide the link to the site with the 3d step files for the spark detector? This episode is a very interesting contribution. Thanks for making us smarter!
I liked seeing the alpha perticles, visualised in the alcohol vapours. Very good demonstration.
This metal radiates freedom.
To be honest, I wasn't expecting a whole lot from this video. It's in smoke alarms...what else can you talk about?? But it turned out to be one of the most interesting and favorite videos from you! I've seen Cloud Chambers before, but have never made one...I need to try this! That was fascinating seeing the atomic particles shooting thru the mist vapor! Thanks so much for such a cool presentation.
Fantastic video. Thank you very much.
Hi Thoisoi :)
Haven't you heard about American teenager who had built nuclear reactor in his yard using many smoke detectors?
The radioactive boy scout, David Hahn? I'd wager to bet that he had heard a lot about him. Everyone in this field of study has. But he used far, far more than just smoke detectors. He even ended up with a lot of radium compounds that he also used.
He was also collecting old clocks to get the radium when he found an old clock that had a bottle of radium paint inside it so he hit the mother load with that one clock.. every nerd knows all about the radioactive boy scout
He didn't actually build a nuclear reactor, this is a common misconception. David Hahn was trying to build a breeder reactor, a breeder reactor is a reactor that makes more fissionable material than it uses.
I use a gadget at work that utilizes amerericium 243 to detect water content. The machine uses cesium 137 to determine density. Its called a Nuclear Density Guage.
The technicians that use these must standardize daily due the decay.
8:11 Americium-241 decays into neptunium which decays also releasing a tiny bit of gamma radiation. So yes, your smoke alarm at home releases a little bit of gamma radiation right into body every day! Nothing too harmful though.
Oh, pro tip for the cloud chamber. You want high percentage ethanol or isopropyl alchol, 90% being best. Otherwise, one can have trouble getting enough to supersaturate the chamber.
This was an episode where I had to mute the sound. (I cannot stand the sound of smoke alarms. I have never been able to.) But of course I wanted to learn about Americium, especially since we use Ionisation Fire alarms in Australia so I used subtitles. Very informative.
FWIW: I have known about _cloud chambers_ for decades, but that _spark chamber_ thing is completely new to me.
Seriously, this is attracting such attention it cannot be just skipped by
10:36 that was amazing
Future
Funny, a year ago or so, I ordered an Am241-based smoke detection module just to test my cloud chamber. (and it did work). You did it the other way around, starting from the smoke detector :-)
I want a radiascan so bad. I just need to get my dream job first.
the first person to witness a cloud chamber, accidentally, must have been so psyched
Brilliant, fantastic. Loved every moment of it.
I moved to Estonia 5 years ago. i have a couple of these in my new house :D
I liked this channel, all videos and content were recorded amazingly. Nice teamwork. I am using these videos for my students to increase their curiosity or chemistry. Keep it Up
Very interesting. Thank you Thoisoi2 for this knowledge. And for the brief view of your homeland's solution to the clean up of a nasty radiation hazard left on your land. 🖖🏻🍻🥓
Americium is still important in research. I wonder why they'd dispose of the smoke detectors instead of refining the Americium out of them? It's got to be cheaper than making new material?
If I had to guess, I would believe they don't yet recycle them is price. Similar to trying to refine the gold from circuit boards, it costs more to remove and purify it than it's worth, though in the future it may be viable.
Maybe because it decays quickly compared to Radium?
@@moonwalkerangel7008 just look up the hall life of Americium..
@@jeffwombold9167 It says Americium 243 has a half life of over 7,500 years but Americium 241 has a half life of 470 years. Ok, I stand corrected.
I think that the Californium (Cf) would be a nice metal to talk about.
It was needed a 50 ton shipping cask to transport 1 gram of it.
Literally one of the best channels on TH-cam!!!
Fun fact:1960's smoke alarms are so radioactive that normal geiger counter fails to detect the radiation and also uses Radium and gold instead of a Americium 241
This was one of the best videos you have done! AND IT ENDS WITH A FLASH! As all good stories should.
Amazing stuff!
Ohhh yes! I have all the parts necessary to make that! Will update here again if I have it working by the end of the week :)
Thank you for the video, i got my ionchamber today via aliexpress, as soon as i bought it it was no longer avaible, allso got an email from aliexpress for a potentialy hazardous material, still it managed to get through all the customs. Now i will power on my 3d printer and build that chamber. cant wait to try it.
This is interesting .. I was recently was messing around on the bench with an AM241 source in a light tight aluminium box, aimed at a piece of 'glow in the dark' tape and a photomultiplier tube fashioned as a scintillator, hoping to detect the NP237 decay and log the probability with a computer. I was never certain why it simply didn't work at all.
Excellent explanations and a passionate attitude to help others understand. Keep at it!
Brooo great video, one of my favourite channels mannn!! no science fiction bullshit, always valuable content
The simple cloud chamber is so cool!
Great video, and inspiring. I learned a lot from this one. I'll for sure be watching more from this channel.
Would have liked to see the spark chamber detecter affected by smoke. As it seems it would work in a similar way to the smoke detecter.
Best Thoisoi2 Video so far. 10/10
This channel is great! Thank you for the education.
I just love this video... I don't know why I'm being kept from commenting on it but have you made a video about Cobalt?!... So why are you 🚫 ing me...I don't know if this will get through. Oh it did thank you YT! 😊 all the comments that were originally supposed to be there are there now reposted he said!
The next one was :
Hello is it working now? I just want to say something nice to you guys, and then this Samsung microphone just circled and circled there and nothing! you posted the video so I'm gonna watch it if you don't want people to watch these videos then don't put them up because people are going to comment and say goodwork sir ...now can you explain to me the usage of cobalt in the medical field and then i would finish by saying, thank you again. This my friend is called an interaction between active sleeves is that OK with you? let me know if I said something wrong and don't get paranoid. I love this video thank you for posting it TH-cam. I see now that you do not censor this type information. I'm very surprised to see tbese ros posted! I wanted to say thank you again Sincerely I thought you would never have this stuff posted online... One more time now...thank you for not censoring these videos. Thank you that's the way it's supposed to be. This is how people learn things no matter who it is...
You post a video that people are going to watch, and people are going to comment on, and it's to tell the guy *thank you at least* you did an excellent job sir, good day. So I had to find another microphone that worked because I guess you didn't want me to post on here or something I'm sorryou're or something I'm sorry if I said something wrong I really am I'm trying to find out what I said wrong so I'll never do it again please work with me so I'll continue with this post and then I said is that why I had or am having trouble with my microphone. So I. So I had to switch to another one, let me try and go back and use my old original microphone again - - - no - - the Samsung microphone keyboard does not work here.
So I leave with my last warning 🛑we use this type of information only to protect from and learn of its dangers...please use caution and beware and don't perform any of these experiments ...hes right about the radiation of tc99m but it's used only in health medicine.
I have now tried to curtail my language in this paragraph to where maybe they will allow it to be posted... I don't know what I did or said earlier that was wrong... I didn't use any cuss words and never reference kraynianU's at all in my post... I even spelled it differently so thank you... I'm trying to work with you guys...I really am. thank you.
OK so my friend said this is what he said : hello is it working now ?
Next sentence he said, I just wanted to say something nice to you guys and then this Samsung microphone just did circles and then nothing nothing.
The next sentence he said: you posted the video so I'm going to watch it! if you don't want people to watch these videos then don't put them up because I'm going to comment and say to the guy : you did goodwork and can you explain to me the usage of Cobalt in one of your future medical videos thank you. Now this my friend is called an interaction between 2 sleeves, is that Okay with you? let me know if I said something wrong and don't get paranoid please. I love this video, thank you for posting it. (Technetium 99m comment )TH-cam I see now that you don't censor this type of information I'm very surprised to see that these videos are posted I want to say again thank you sincerely this is how people learn things no matter who it is that is reading it.
You post a video that people are going to like and watch and they are going to probably comment on it and at least say *thank you at least* You did an excellent job sir good day. Next time can you comment on cobalt... So I had to find another microphone that worked because I guess you didn't want me to post on here or something… is that why I had or I'm having trouble with my microphone. So I had to switch to another one, let me try and go back and use my old original microphone again - - - no - - to ask to ask to Samsung microphone keyboard does not work here. that's what I tried to do, but you wouldn't let me for some reason I know there must be a word or a comment or something I said and I said and here that's not allowing it to be posted or something is it the cobalt word or something I have no idea but I don't know so I had to switch to and let me try and go back and use my old original microphone and then I'm changing microphones and i say hello do you hear me, there you go, my microphone starts working. so I was gonna try and translate this and then they said OK we don't want him to translate it into Russian so just let him post this comment and they let me post my comment in english. So is that what it was? Could you please tell me if that's what it was please...you don't want me to translate it into Russian? I'm sorry, I won't do it then...I'm sorry please I'll never do that again, I sense some paranoid or something in TH-cam, oh my God dudes I'm not doing anything wrong, you guys posted the videos the videos are pretty good. I'm surprised you posted it that's why I'm wondering why you're not getting so paranoid about it my commenting
I know you won't delete my comment I know you will like reading this so I think you should read this you know who I am that was from my friend they wouldn't let this one be posted either I have no idea why. Please somebody tell me was there anything foul or cuss language or referencing other people from other countries in here or some kind of battle or something that maybe I shouldn't mention you please tell me what was in those words that made it to where it didn't post on my common here
OK this one is from my friend the dude 2010 Odyssey 58 minutes ago edited he said hello is it working now?
In the next sentence I said I just wanted to say something nice to you guys and then the Samsung microphone just circled and circled there and nothing you posted the video so I'm going to watch it.
I once bombarded common dandelion seeds with close contact with harvested Americium buttons from dead smoke alarms with very interesting results.
Very good video. Now the next question: can you make a battery with Americium?
I have seen cloud chambers before but never have I heard about spark chamber detector. Thank you so much
Well now we know you are not a science nerd virgin.. there was an attractive young lady helping you tour an old soviet building that was clearly not into the video subject but into having fun with you in an old building tour. Gods bless her young happy soul and you together. Warms my old heart to see young love.