Since I was 8, I sometimes listened to REM band. However the first meaning I learned of that abbreviation is Radiation Equivalent in Men not Rapid Eye Movement.
It might be fun to harvest enough daughters of Radon in order to get a measurable sample of Pb-210. I once ran an “ionic breeze” air filter in my basement for many months for that purpose. It died prematurely due to my mother’s smoking downstairs at the time and the nicotine/tar build up causing a coronal hot spot that ate thru one of the HV wires, but anyway by frequently wiping down the plates with the same paper towel (which was pretty radiologically fresh while hot, but dead as a door nail after about 10 hours), the paper towel did in the end produce a good 2 cpm above background counts, determined after averaging multiple lengthy measurements logged on a Gamma Scout. I still believe it was Pb-210 and hope someday to recreate it with cleaner air. I would imagine putting a few little sheets of aluminum foil attached to alligator clips inside of the Revigator & putting a high voltage on them (keeping separating by good amount of air) will collect loads of Rn daughters and perhaps in the end yield a Pb-210 source, and probably much stronger than mine turned out to be.
In one of the lab experiments at the uni, they made us measure the radon collected inside some air filters they put into the basement of the lab. We had the use of a germanium detector and we first measured them before putting them in the basement, then after they were left there for 4 days. With germanium's energy sensitivity at LN2 temperatures you could see all the lines of the daughter nuclei extremely clearly
Hey Drew - I have a question. Perhaps a future video? How do you store your items in your collection? Where do you store them in your home? What advice can you give to amateur collectors about how to handle and showcase their collections? Thanks Drew!
Was low key hoping to see you put some water in it, and test a sample; see how intense dissolved daughter products would make it. Maybe a couple cups or so. Future video perhaps, for showing what kind of radiation levels people were actually drinking. Might try measuring the activity every few hours or so to demonstrate the rate of decay until it’s back at background. I recall the video you did after walking into the mine opening and getting your clothes soaked in spicy air, and showing they were back to normal a couple days later. Was curious if water would exhibit a similar reduction being a fluid, rather than clothes that could be tossed, tumbled, and knocked free of dust particulates and flung off.
“The radium water worked fine…until his jaw fell off” That jar is quite the find. I used my geiger counter after my HIDA scan and I measured in excess of 22,000cpm.
I think that scan uses Tc-99m, which puts out a lot of gamma. I was able to detect my family member that had a similar scan when they walked into the house using my Radiacode 101.
Other fun experiments that come to mind besides the electrostatic collection of Rn daughters to get a measurable Pb-210 sample: Put water in there and run it through water filters (could try different types; I expect active carbon to do well, but might be curious to see what filtering through something fancy like ion exchange resin filtration, or super basic things like sand or paper towels). Bulk water may be too dilute to demonstrate much radioactivity, but if a filter can capture those daughters well, it would give a good idea of how much someone drinking from that thing might be ingesting. Also as I’ve heard that radon gas is soluble in oils, maybe put an aquarium pump tube inside of it to draw the radon containing air out, and push it through one of those “bubble stone” things that make the tiny bubbles, and so that into a column of mineral oil. See if that oil becomes radioactive as a result.
That would be an interesting idea. Radon isolation is kind of tough with radon having such a short half-life. I would think it would be much easier to collect the Lead-210.
In industrial radiology they use nuclear reactors to activate isotopes to make Ir-192, Se-75 and Co-60. also kinda hard to relate to Cps/cpm when i am used to Siverts. Nice to see these nice and informative videos, keep up the good work.
CPM and CPS are related to particular type of the detector (GM tube, PMT etc.). The simplest way how to use them is to compare them with background reading. Reading in CPM by itself means nothing, it must be always related to particular detector. If you want to convert it into dosimetric quantity (like equivalent dose rate in Sv/h), you must know the detector characteristics and properties of the radiation detected. Many people ignore that GM tubes detect multiple radiation types at once and they seek for magic "cpm to usv/h ratio" which can always be stipulated but for one particular situation only, without proper shielding and compensation of energy response it's nonsense to use it for wide ranges of energies and several types of radiation being detected simultaneously.
@@Ales.2000 In practical use i se cps/cpm beeing used to find contamination to detemind how equipment is handled or disposed of after use. So as you say it shows above background, clearly indicating contamination and that is a good thing. But not easy to translate and compare in my brain when i am used to Sv/h from sources with much higher activity and mostly using GM tubes on gamma radiation as sources are shielded :) So not easy for Drew to make the comparison on video either.
Sieverts and others are good for finding things in a volume of a substance. Smaller read outs. Cpm is an average of the combined exposure. Depending on the counters sensitive ranges for whatever type. Another would be joules the amount of energy those charged particles emit upon hitting something. The ticks and beeps you hear. Both are direct exposure over a given surface area. Used to calculate safe exposure times vs the amount contained in a shielded liquid like water. Sievert looks like a smaller statistically as it is usually used to find the smallest amount in something. That’s been the reason it’s been used socially vs cpm etc. It’s less alarming to those that don’t understand the measure of units. If your concerns are you immediate exposure rates and the level of harm your being subjected to you use cpm. A standardized unit based on real world data. And military training uses a graph based on direct studies. At what point does ionizing radiation and “hard” radiation pose an observable effect on a living being. Answer 300cpm and no exposure is safe. Most especially dust and particles.
@@pazsion What on earth are you talking about? For the protection of uninformed commenters I will simply recommend that everyone disregard this characterization of the use of Sieverts and cpm readings...
Great video! There should be rather faster decrease in the radioactive contamination as Po-218 decays away, then it should follow ≈30min half-life of Pb-214 and Bi-214 (and Po-214). Pb-210 will be rather undetectable. It would be also nice to show that. I would rather put there some stand in order to avoid touching the carnotite layer.
@@RadioactiveDrew Also, we talked about finding uranium in nature in the comments a while ago. And you inspired me to check the old uranium mine again, where I previously thought there's nothing to find. And there was actually a spot and got plenty of ore😁 So thank you very much for the inspiration to go out there again and look.
would have been interesting to see what happens when you washed the cup (and/or the banana).. Curious that the underside of the cup was not that radioactive. It must have touched the carnotite layer?
You could expose that thorium nitrate to x-rays but it shouldn't do anything to it. If you wanted to transmute it into another isotope you need neutrons.
I use a 0.0057 conversion for mine so 80,000 cpm is roughly equal to 400 uSV / h, but then again cpm is realative to the detector so it's very hard to gauge unless you compare it to the background radiation.
Years ago i saw few kids play with such a jug, closing off the top and putting their faces to see the glow. I now know why was it glowing, and that my hunch to not go where they eventually broke the jug with a rock, was right
That a great demonstration. easy just to make one. This is what happened to you and your giggercounter when you entered a mine. after washing and time went back to normal background. This was a outher way to bring health effects outher than sitting in a mine, all a great part of history . ☢
@@adamdobias4669 it depends on if you have a filter for the detector. When I measure dose rates with the Radeye B20 I use the H10 filter that blocks all the alpha and kicks down most of the beta as well.
The problem with that is putting a beryllium canister in the Revigator is that only a small amount of the alpha particles are going to hit it and create neutrons...some alphas from radon and the other daughters might interact with the beryllium. The other problem is that beryllium is also a neutron reflector. So it would be better to have a strong alpha source next to or mixed with beryllium and then some HDPE plastic to slow down the neutrons so they would have a better chance to hit whatever your target was.
In my opinion, beryllium is too expensive and poisonous, maybe some aluminium might be used, Marie and Pierre Curie inserted polonium into aluminium flask and found out it became radioactive. The reason was that alpha particles reacted with Al-27 to form P-30 (β+, T½=2.5min) and neutron. So some aluminium foil might also perform well if the alpha emission it is subjected to is sufficient.
I wish Drew would specify that the contamination is in fact PERMANENT. The radon daughters simply decay into Pb-210, which a 22 year half-life. So the contamination is just spread out in time, but will undergo just as many decays as the Bi-214, etc. Furthermore, if you have a strong radon source, you probably will be completely incapable of washing the Pb-210 off. I've tried cleaning a canning jar lid, and it doesn't work well. Other decay products can be almost impossible to wash off your hands.
How do you store this at your house? Or do you even store it in the house? Are you worried about the radon gas that comes off of it? I just found one and I'm almost scared to bring it inside! What should I do?! Help me please!
i have radon in my house ("safe" levels but a fun little thing i like to do is when i change my furnace filter or my air purifier filter is i run em over my geiger counter and watch it click away for like 3 hours or so even my cheapy one from china clicks away on it pretty good
Its hard to do because it doesn't translate straight across. It really depends on what you are detecting. This Reviator gives off a lot of alpha and beta radiation with some gamma...so counts per minute makes a bit more sense. If it was something like Cs-137 or Co-60 then Sieverts would make a bit more sense to use. Still even in those cases I still like seeing counts as that's the raw data before a dose conversion happens.
Interesting, I have a "radium cone" that was used for the same purpose as your revigator, to add radon to water. It's the hottest thing I currently own. I madfe a video of it a few months ago if you want to see it. Found it at an antique store with my Raysid
I've seen those cones before...mainly at the Nuclear Science and History Museum and some other places. Its amazing what you can find at an antique shop.
Speaking of potassium-40, the best matter for a video on this topic is sodium-free salt substitute. Half-salt may be a bad choice because it sometimes consists of sodium and calcium chlorides in equal proportions. Some fertilizers contain potassium salts as well.
A tablespoon of it evenly spread usually gives out about 500 CPM (LND 7317 no energy compensation) which is the highest count I could ever get so far. The enrichment of potassium is impossible without highly sophisticated equipment and as long as the proportion of K-40 in potassium intake remains the same, the ionizing radiation exposure is not increased.
Noticed you tend to touch the detector to the items, you get a better reading about 1cm away and are possibly contaminating your instruments by doing that. Also curious how you go about cleaning them.
I personally wouldn't touch or eat any of that stuff, but im not super familiar with the science and dangers of radiation and the levels that are safe. I'd just be paranoid. Super cool though! I'd want to see them in a cloud chamber haha
Activation is pretty much impossible outside of an active nuclear reactor. Aside from being in the presence of ongoing fission or fusion, there really isn't any way to get enough neutrons hitting something to activate it.
Hi Drew, not really a reply to this video, but wanted to say that I just became aware -- through an article on the BBC website -- that another item where radioisotopes have traditionally been used is lightning rods. The idea was that this would increase the probability of attracting a strike to the rod, and although the IAEA now apparently says that there is no evidence that it works, I assume the mechanism they had in mind was that beta radiation would ionize the air somewhat and create a larger conductive target for the static charge to discharge into. Were you aware of this use?
I think it might work, not only beta radiation but alpha as well. However it might be rather rare thing to find. Few years ago we had our lightning rod replaced so I checked it with Geiger counter (using LND-712 tube) and found no activity. I'm from the Czech Republic, it may be different elsewhere.
@@Ales.2000 Thanks, that's interesting. Yeah, I thought about alpha emitters as well, but I have heard that the alpha particles only manage to move a few centimetres in air .. and if so, the ionized area would exist, as you indicate, but be quite small.
@@RadioactiveDrew BTW I posted the link to the article in a separate comment, which got blocked (as I suspected), but maybe it's visible for you as the channel owner.
Me 👀 like I wanna watch you activate a metal 😮 now I would love to know something we're people contaminated while drinking this or did it not affect them there is 30% natural uranium in our drinking water anyway
That's a good question. I believe people were contaminated to a degree after drinking the water from this jar. I need to do some tests to see how much contamination it was.
The way you talked about the banana at the end was concerning, you're factoring in that there's probably carnotite powder on it right? And whoever eats it will get their hands contaminated while eating, seems like unnecessary risk. Doing stuff that's a bit borderline risky but probably fine is okay for yourself, but imo you shouldn't involve your family in this, especially since just one missed variable can change risk factors on orders of magnitude.
I like your Video's.........probably should have used the same detector/Geiger counter at the start and the end, for an apples to apples comparison.......also maybe washed the test items in soapy water and tested again..........cheers and again, I really like your Video's.
If you need Be9 for your “Activation” experiments, I can help. You might be able to pull off a RaBe a,n reaction with the Ra-226 source from that smoke detector you have.
That’s what I was thinking about doing. There are a couple papers out there about neutron maximization in RaBe reactions that deal with different configurations and how to configure HDPE to get the neutrons down to a thermal speed. Ideally I would want to get some beryllium machined to a particular configuration but beryllium can be a bit hazardous to machine down. I’m sure some people can do it.
wow that's actually....much worse than I'd always assumed. I've known about the existence of these things for ages, but just always assumed they maybe mixed a little thorium into the clay and that was it. To actually SEE the green carnotite painted onto the inside though!! whoa. That's bad.... Do you have a radon sensor in your active storage area or in the house? I just got an Airthings Corentium and I'm actually super impressed with the accuracy and low power draw for a device that continually measures like it does. Retail new is like 150 or something which is kind of ridiculous, but you can find them for like $40 on ebay with broken battery covers or whatever that still work perfectly fine. Still thinking of some experiments to do with mine.....
I have that AirThings radon monitor in the house. I've pushed mine up to around 320 pCi/L by sticking it in a case with some radium doped compasses. It was fine after a couple days.
@@RadioactiveDrew after extensively researching its construction and operation through patents and teardown images, I'd say there's....really nothing to actually break! It's quite a remarkable all solid-state system, consisting of little more than a single photodiode detector chip the size of a fingernail enclosed in a metallized plastic can charged to 10V. That's it. It uses pulse height discrimination to count only the alpha hits on the photodiode and the can is constructed to allow only Rn to diffuse into it, eliminating ingress of external Rn progeny, so it really is insensitive to anything but actual Rn decays inside the sample volume. It doesn't seem to care at all about ambient gamma or betas.
@@Muonium1 I've heard of some people saturating their radon detectors and they are never able to get them back to reading normal levels. I haven't experienced anything like this yet but I'm hoping to push that AirThings to its limit.
Can a Revigator be used to irradiate fruit and vegetables to extend their shelf life? Get a metal rack to put in the Revigator so the items are elevated for more even irradiation. Get a couple of apples, put one inside the Revigator for a couple of days then remove it. Then place the test and control in the same location with shielding between so radiation from the Revigated apple won;t affect the control apple. Do a time lapse video to see if the Revigated apple decays slower. Be sure to put up a sign "Radioactive Apple Test in Progress. Do Not Eat!"
This Channel make me buying a GQ GMC 600+, and walking through berlin hunting for uranium glas. I dont find any of there orange plates, but a lot of uranium glas.
Don't waist a banana skin a friend of mine escaped a police man after smashing a green house window with a banana skin in the 1950,s a radioactive banana skin might get donald of the hook.
The radium girls were ingesting a lot of radium because of using their mouths to make a point with their paint brushes. Someone lining the inside of a bunch of Revigators would be exposed to a decent amount of radiation but most of it would be external exposure I would imagine.
I don't know how it is made so that carnotite adheres to the ceramics, but remember, radium girls were working with a paint containing some radium salt. Although carnotite contains radium as uranium decays, chemically it's compound of uranium, potassium uranyl vanadate trihydrate.
Have you thought of adding some seeds to the revigorator and trying to mutate some plants? I understand this was done in the 1950s using various radioactive sources including x-rays.
You really should look into the Eco Cube radon monitor. It is an ion chamber based device and is essential for anyone with a substantial uranium ore or revigator collection. If you get one you will be amazed at how different variables have a substantial effect on radon levels. I personally recommend at least 2 so you can monitor different areas of your house and get a better overall average.
@@RadioactiveDrew well air things might be alright for measuring radon inside the revigator but I would still recommend the eco cube for monitoring household levels as it is far more accurate.
u should stick electronics in it like smartphones and see if it will crash or cause a fault with the software. edit....maybe a sd card? see if it corrupts anything on it.
This might increase your risk of cancer if you were drinking out of it all the time. People inadvertently drink radon infused ground water quite a bit.
Why did you use 2 different test devices for the before & after? I'm not questioning the viability of your test devices, but, some would. Just for 100% repeatability's sake. Science requires repeatability.
Daughters of Radon sounds like a cool metal band
Hahahah…it does.
I thought it, you said it before me.
Their manager was a lawyer, and their first album was called Industrial Disease ...
Just pitch the 🍌
Since I was 8, I sometimes listened to REM band. However the first meaning I learned of that abbreviation is Radiation Equivalent in Men not Rapid Eye Movement.
Two atoms are conversing and one declares “I think I just lost an electron.” The other asked, “Are you sure?” The first replies, “I’m positive.”
The cliffhanger is the decontamination side of the equation. I was totally expecting to see you wash the items off and show their new count levels.
Me too! Missed verification of decon with meter readings on peeled banana and washed cup.
This was fascinating - I thought I had seen all the crazy health devices but never saw this one. I’m really looking forward to your activation video.
I'm looking forward to doing them...should be fun. They will take a bit more work than sticking stuff into a Revigator.
It might be fun to harvest enough daughters of Radon in order to get a measurable sample of Pb-210. I once ran an “ionic breeze” air filter in my basement for many months for that purpose. It died prematurely due to my mother’s smoking downstairs at the time and the nicotine/tar build up causing a coronal hot spot that ate thru one of the HV wires, but anyway by frequently wiping down the plates with the same paper towel (which was pretty radiologically fresh while hot, but dead as a door nail after about 10 hours), the paper towel did in the end produce a good 2 cpm above background counts, determined after averaging multiple lengthy measurements logged on a Gamma Scout. I still believe it was Pb-210 and hope someday to recreate it with cleaner air.
I would imagine putting a few little sheets of aluminum foil attached to alligator clips inside of the Revigator & putting a high voltage on them (keeping separating by good amount of air) will collect loads of Rn daughters and perhaps in the end yield a Pb-210 source, and probably much stronger than mine turned out to be.
In one of the lab experiments at the uni, they made us measure the radon collected inside some air filters they put into the basement of the lab. We had the use of a germanium detector and we first measured them before putting them in the basement, then after they were left there for 4 days. With germanium's energy sensitivity at LN2 temperatures you could see all the lines of the daughter nuclei extremely clearly
Hey Drew - I have a question. Perhaps a future video? How do you store your items in your collection? Where do you store them in your home? What advice can you give to amateur collectors about how to handle and showcase their collections? Thanks Drew!
Its a video I'm planning on doing as a couple people have asked the same question. Hopefully I'll have time to do it soon.
I used to have a steel cabinet with a lock sitting outside the garage door for storage of stuff like this.
Was low key hoping to see you put some water in it, and test a sample; see how intense dissolved daughter products would make it. Maybe a couple cups or so. Future video perhaps, for showing what kind of radiation levels people were actually drinking. Might try measuring the activity every few hours or so to demonstrate the rate of decay until it’s back at background.
I recall the video you did after walking into the mine opening and getting your clothes soaked in spicy air, and showing they were back to normal a couple days later. Was curious if water would exhibit a similar reduction being a fluid, rather than clothes that could be tossed, tumbled, and knocked free of dust particulates and flung off.
“The radium water worked fine…until his jaw fell off”
That jar is quite the find.
I used my geiger counter after my HIDA scan and I measured in excess of 22,000cpm.
I think that scan uses Tc-99m, which puts out a lot of gamma. I was able to detect my family member that had a similar scan when they walked into the house using my Radiacode 101.
Other fun experiments that come to mind besides the electrostatic collection of Rn daughters to get a measurable Pb-210 sample:
Put water in there and run it through water filters (could try different types; I expect active carbon to do well, but might be curious to see what filtering through something fancy like ion exchange resin filtration, or super basic things like sand or paper towels). Bulk water may be too dilute to demonstrate much radioactivity, but if a filter can capture those daughters well, it would give a good idea of how much someone drinking from that thing might be ingesting.
Also as I’ve heard that radon gas is soluble in oils, maybe put an aquarium pump tube inside of it to draw the radon containing air out, and push it through one of those “bubble stone” things that make the tiny bubbles, and so that into a column of mineral oil. See if that oil becomes radioactive as a result.
That would be an interesting idea. Radon isolation is kind of tough with radon having such a short half-life. I would think it would be much easier to collect the Lead-210.
3:44 - contamination may be removable or non-removable.
In industrial radiology they use nuclear reactors to activate isotopes to make Ir-192, Se-75 and Co-60. also kinda hard to relate to Cps/cpm when i am used to Siverts. Nice to see these nice and informative videos, keep up the good work.
Glad you enjoy them.
CPM and CPS are related to particular type of the detector (GM tube, PMT etc.). The simplest way how to use them is to compare them with background reading. Reading in CPM by itself means nothing, it must be always related to particular detector. If you want to convert it into dosimetric quantity (like equivalent dose rate in Sv/h), you must know the detector characteristics and properties of the radiation detected. Many people ignore that GM tubes detect multiple radiation types at once and they seek for magic "cpm to usv/h ratio" which can always be stipulated but for one particular situation only, without proper shielding and compensation of energy response it's nonsense to use it for wide ranges of energies and several types of radiation being detected simultaneously.
@@Ales.2000 In practical use i se cps/cpm beeing used to find contamination to detemind how equipment is handled or disposed of after use. So as you say it shows above background, clearly indicating contamination and that is a good thing. But not easy to translate and compare in my brain when i am used to Sv/h from sources with much higher activity and mostly using GM tubes on gamma radiation as sources are shielded :) So not easy for Drew to make the comparison on video either.
Sieverts and others are good for finding things in a volume of a substance. Smaller read outs.
Cpm is an average of the combined exposure. Depending on the counters sensitive ranges for whatever type.
Another would be joules the amount of energy those charged particles emit upon hitting something. The ticks and beeps you hear.
Both are direct exposure over a given surface area. Used to calculate safe exposure times vs the amount contained in a shielded liquid like water.
Sievert looks like a smaller statistically as it is usually used to find the smallest amount in something. That’s been the reason it’s been used socially vs cpm etc.
It’s less alarming to those that don’t understand the measure of units.
If your concerns are you immediate exposure rates and the level of harm your being subjected to you use cpm. A standardized unit based on real world data. And military training uses a graph based on direct studies.
At what point does ionizing radiation and “hard” radiation pose an observable effect on a living being. Answer 300cpm and no exposure is safe. Most especially dust and particles.
@@pazsion What on earth are you talking about? For the protection of uninformed commenters I will simply recommend that everyone disregard this characterization of the use of Sieverts and cpm readings...
Great video! There should be rather faster decrease in the radioactive contamination as Po-218 decays away, then it should follow ≈30min half-life of Pb-214 and Bi-214 (and Po-214). Pb-210 will be rather undetectable. It would be also nice to show that. I would rather put there some stand in order to avoid touching the carnotite layer.
I might do a follow up video.
Omg you bought a Revigator😂 Damn wats next, a chunk of pure radium? 🤣
That would be fun…in a sealed glove box.
@@RadioactiveDrew Also, we talked about finding uranium in nature in the comments a while ago. And you inspired me to check the old uranium mine again, where I previously thought there's nothing to find. And there was actually a spot and got plenty of ore😁 So thank you very much for the inspiration to go out there again and look.
Thank you Drew, interesting experiment.
Glad you liked it.
would have been interesting to see what happens when you washed the cup (and/or the banana).. Curious that the underside of the cup was not that radioactive. It must have touched the carnotite layer?
The contamination was suspended in the air...so even if a side is touching the carnotite layer it wouldn't be as contaminated as the sides facing up.
Pretty interesting and a well awesome video. Question? Is it possible to irritated Thorium nitrate with soft X-rays tubes from a DIY X-rays machine?
You could expose that thorium nitrate to x-rays but it shouldn't do anything to it. If you wanted to transmute it into another isotope you need neutrons.
@@RadioactiveDrew thank you
Activation can be performed not only by neutrons but by protons or heavy ions as well in a particle accelerator.
Very true...but an alpha / neutron reaction would be far more accessible.
What does the radiacode or BetterGeiger read in uSv/h inside and next to the outside surface of the Revigator?
I use a 0.0057 conversion for mine so 80,000 cpm is roughly equal to 400 uSV / h, but then again cpm is realative to the detector so it's very hard to gauge unless you compare it to the background radiation.
I'll have to check. Those would mainly be seeing gamma radiation...very few betas and no alphas.
@@RadioactiveDrew Yes that way we can estimate the radium activity
RC102 now has a spectrograph feature and it would be interesting to see if you can visually detect the shorter half lives....
I’ll make sure to share that when I do a video about the Revigator.
Pretty cool piece of history!
I'm going to do a video on the Revigator getting a little more into the history behind it.
Years ago i saw few kids play with such a jug, closing off the top and putting their faces to see the glow. I now know why was it glowing, and that my hunch to not go where they eventually broke the jug with a rock, was right
That a great demonstration. easy just to make one. This is what happened to you and your giggercounter when you entered a mine. after washing and time went back to normal background. This was a outher way to bring health effects outher than sitting in a mine, all a great part of history . ☢
I plan on making a video just about the Revigator and explaining what they were trying to do with all that.
Interesting, activating some stuff should be interesting as well.
This was really interesting, but I was hoping you would leave them out for 24 hours and then test again to see how much the radioactivity changed.
you should specify if the counter you are using detects alpha... and also i would appreciate if you specified the doserate if possible. thank you
I do try and include dose rates in my new videos using scintillation detectors setup for dose rates and energy compensated.
yeah... that makes sense. I have thought that those alpha detecting counters arent accurate in doserates. Sorry to bother you
@@adamdobias4669 it depends on if you have a filter for the detector. When I measure dose rates with the Radeye B20 I use the H10 filter that blocks all the alpha and kicks down most of the beta as well.
Oh phooey, I was hoping a banana-yellow tentacle holding the cup would uncoil from the jar and hand the cup to him...
How about getting a beryllium canister to put inside the revigerator? Would that even make enough neutrons to actuvate anything?
The problem with that is putting a beryllium canister in the Revigator is that only a small amount of the alpha particles are going to hit it and create neutrons...some alphas from radon and the other daughters might interact with the beryllium. The other problem is that beryllium is also a neutron reflector. So it would be better to have a strong alpha source next to or mixed with beryllium and then some HDPE plastic to slow down the neutrons so they would have a better chance to hit whatever your target was.
In my opinion, beryllium is too expensive and poisonous, maybe some aluminium might be used, Marie and Pierre Curie inserted polonium into aluminium flask and found out it became radioactive. The reason was that alpha particles reacted with Al-27 to form P-30 (β+, T½=2.5min) and neutron. So some aluminium foil might also perform well if the alpha emission it is subjected to is sufficient.
It amazes me that someone thought irradiated water was a good idea.
It was the 1920's...they thought a lot of stuff was good for you.
@@RadioactiveDrew Bayer made and sold radium pills. I've actually seen the bottle. How insane is that?
@@RevMikeBlack wish I could say that surprises me.
I wish Drew would specify that the contamination is in fact PERMANENT. The radon daughters simply decay into Pb-210, which a 22 year half-life. So the contamination is just spread out in time, but will undergo just as many decays as the Bi-214, etc.
Furthermore, if you have a strong radon source, you probably will be completely incapable of washing the Pb-210 off. I've tried cleaning a canning jar lid, and it doesn't work well. Other decay products can be almost impossible to wash off your hands.
Was I the only one like, after the explanation of that object, there’s no way I’m putting my hand in there!?
Thanks very interesting.
This terrified me because I suffer from a condition where I must lick the peel of every 3rd banana whenever I go to the grocery store.
How do you store this at your house? Or do you even store it in the house? Are you worried about the radon gas that comes off of it? I just found one and I'm almost scared to bring it inside! What should I do?! Help me please!
i have radon in my house ("safe" levels but a fun little thing i like to do is when i change my furnace filter or my air purifier filter is i run em over my geiger counter and watch it click away for like 3 hours or so even my cheapy one from china clicks away on it pretty good
Air filters in homes are always fun to check.
Have you ever had a knock at the door from a government agency wondering why they detected a hot spot?
Never...but I'm sure there's a list with my name on it.
How do you translate counts per minute to dosage
Its hard to do because it doesn't translate straight across. It really depends on what you are detecting. This Reviator gives off a lot of alpha and beta radiation with some gamma...so counts per minute makes a bit more sense. If it was something like Cs-137 or Co-60 then Sieverts would make a bit more sense to use. Still even in those cases I still like seeing counts as that's the raw data before a dose conversion happens.
you should put a small plant in there for 24hrs to see if effects its growth?
That would be fun.
Interesting, I have a "radium cone" that was used for the same purpose as your revigator, to add radon to water. It's the hottest thing I currently own. I madfe a video of it a few months ago if you want to see it. Found it at an antique store with my Raysid
I've seen those cones before...mainly at the Nuclear Science and History Museum and some other places. Its amazing what you can find at an antique shop.
Speaking of potassium-40, the best matter for a video on this topic is sodium-free salt substitute. Half-salt may be a bad choice because it sometimes consists of sodium and calcium chlorides in equal proportions. Some fertilizers contain potassium salts as well.
I have some potassium chloride salt substitute that I got at the store. Its just a little bit radioactive.
A tablespoon of it evenly spread usually gives out about 500 CPM (LND 7317 no energy compensation) which is the highest count I could ever get so far.
The enrichment of potassium is impossible without highly sophisticated equipment and as long as the proportion of K-40 in potassium intake remains the same, the ionizing radiation exposure is not increased.
where do you get your cool shirts?
The t-shirts are ones I make and sell on my site uraniumstore.com . As far as the button up goes I believe I’ve gotten those ones from REI.
Sounds like a portal to the perfect murder.
Noticed you tend to touch the detector to the items, you get a better reading about 1cm away and are possibly contaminating your instruments by doing that. Also curious how you go about cleaning them.
it was a very nice experience, brother. Do you have a detector that determines the nature of radiation separately? REDEYE AB100.....
That would be cool to have. Usually I use a filter and distance to figure out different types of radiation.
I personally wouldn't touch or eat any of that stuff, but im not super familiar with the science and dangers of radiation and the levels that are safe. I'd just be paranoid. Super cool though! I'd want to see them in a cloud chamber haha
A cloud chamber is on my list of things to build.
@@RadioactiveDrew awesome!!! Can't wait to see
Activation is pretty much impossible outside of an active nuclear reactor. Aside from being in the presence of ongoing fission or fusion, there really isn't any way to get enough neutrons hitting something to activate it.
I plan to show otherwise.
One of those millicurie Polonium sources with Beryllium infront of it plus some HDPE blocks is all you need
Hi Drew, not really a reply to this video, but wanted to say that I just became aware -- through an article on the BBC website -- that another item where radioisotopes have traditionally been used is lightning rods. The idea was that this would increase the probability of attracting a strike to the rod, and although the IAEA now apparently says that there is no evidence that it works, I assume the mechanism they had in mind was that beta radiation would ionize the air somewhat and create a larger conductive target for the static charge to discharge into. Were you aware of this use?
I think it might work, not only beta radiation but alpha as well. However it might be rather rare thing to find. Few years ago we had our lightning rod replaced so I checked it with Geiger counter (using LND-712 tube) and found no activity. I'm from the Czech Republic, it may be different elsewhere.
@@Ales.2000 Thanks, that's interesting. Yeah, I thought about alpha emitters as well, but I have heard that the alpha particles only manage to move a few centimetres in air .. and if so, the ionized area would exist, as you indicate, but be quite small.
I’ve heard of these and they seem super rare to find. But I’m planning to test this idea out…if these lightning rods worked like they said they did.
@@RadioactiveDrew BTW I posted the link to the article in a separate comment, which got blocked (as I suspected), but maybe it's visible for you as the channel owner.
Keep going
I need revigorating when I wake up. I need a bath tub sized one
The idea behind the Revigator was so people could have the same type of water found at hot springs that were also radioactive and had radon infused.
Me 👀 like I wanna watch you activate a metal 😮 now I would love to know something we're people contaminated while drinking this or did it not affect them there is 30% natural uranium in our drinking water anyway
That's a good question. I believe people were contaminated to a degree after drinking the water from this jar. I need to do some tests to see how much contamination it was.
The way you talked about the banana at the end was concerning, you're factoring in that there's probably carnotite powder on it right? And whoever eats it will get their hands contaminated while eating, seems like unnecessary risk.
Doing stuff that's a bit borderline risky but probably fine is okay for yourself, but imo you shouldn't involve your family in this, especially since just one missed variable can change risk factors on orders of magnitude.
There is no carnotite powder in the Revigator. The material inside the container is like a concrete and doesn't come off easily.
Thank god I am not alone, it's just common sense. Seeing that cup go in made my stomach twist, his brain tumor must be pushing on something important.
@@discoverbasic5760 I mean what he's doing isn't really dangerous, but what annoys me is the completely unnecessary risk taking, it sets a bad example
I like your Video's.........probably should have used the same detector/Geiger counter at the start and the end, for an apples to apples comparison.......also maybe washed the test items in soapy water and tested again..........cheers and again, I really like your Video's.
I had to use the Ludlum 14C to get the reading down in the Revigator. Really hard to show the reading from the Radeye when its down in the container.
If you need Be9 for your “Activation” experiments, I can help. You might be able to pull off a RaBe a,n reaction with the Ra-226 source from that smoke detector you have.
That’s what I was thinking about doing. There are a couple papers out there about neutron maximization in RaBe reactions that deal with different configurations and how to configure HDPE to get the neutrons down to a thermal speed. Ideally I would want to get some beryllium machined to a particular configuration but beryllium can be a bit hazardous to machine down. I’m sure some people can do it.
I would love to add a Revigator to my collection
They can be found. Finding them out in an antique shop might be pretty difficult. When I found mine I didn't even know what it was.
wow that's actually....much worse than I'd always assumed. I've known about the existence of these things for ages, but just always assumed they maybe mixed a little thorium into the clay and that was it. To actually SEE the green carnotite painted onto the inside though!! whoa. That's bad....
Do you have a radon sensor in your active storage area or in the house? I just got an Airthings Corentium and I'm actually super impressed with the accuracy and low power draw for a device that continually measures like it does. Retail new is like 150 or something which is kind of ridiculous, but you can find them for like $40 on ebay with broken battery covers or whatever that still work perfectly fine. Still thinking of some experiments to do with mine.....
I have that AirThings radon monitor in the house. I've pushed mine up to around 320 pCi/L by sticking it in a case with some radium doped compasses. It was fine after a couple days.
@@RadioactiveDrew omfg haha ☢🤣 do a video!
@@Muonium1 I'm hoping to do something like this...maybe pushing it to its limit. Hopefully without breaking it.
@@RadioactiveDrew after extensively researching its construction and operation through patents and teardown images, I'd say there's....really nothing to actually break! It's quite a remarkable all solid-state system, consisting of little more than a single photodiode detector chip the size of a fingernail enclosed in a metallized plastic can charged to 10V. That's it. It uses pulse height discrimination to count only the alpha hits on the photodiode and the can is constructed to allow only Rn to diffuse into it, eliminating ingress of external Rn progeny, so it really is insensitive to anything but actual Rn decays inside the sample volume. It doesn't seem to care at all about ambient gamma or betas.
@@Muonium1 I've heard of some people saturating their radon detectors and they are never able to get them back to reading normal levels. I haven't experienced anything like this yet but I'm hoping to push that AirThings to its limit.
Can a Revigator be used to irradiate fruit and vegetables to extend their shelf life? Get a metal rack to put in the Revigator so the items are elevated for more even irradiation. Get a couple of apples, put one inside the Revigator for a couple of days then remove it. Then place the test and control in the same location with shielding between so radiation from the Revigated apple won;t affect the control apple. Do a time lapse video to see if the Revigated apple decays slower. Be sure to put up a sign "Radioactive Apple Test in Progress. Do Not Eat!"
Consider trying it with plant seeds to attempt to get a mutation
I don't think there would be enough radiation to effect it. But maybe I'll have to try it out.
No way.. how'd you find that revigator?
Just good old fashioned luck.
17 MILLION?!?! And people drank from that?! Omg
This Channel make me buying a GQ GMC 600+, and walking through berlin hunting for uranium glas. I dont find any of there orange plates, but a lot of uranium glas.
Uranium glass is much easier to find.
That was interesting. So that was a more recent version of snake oli too heal all of our illnesses.
Yeah...it was during a time where there wasn't much regulation in food or drugs.
You should do a video on those so called negative ion wrist bands and pendants that they sell on Amazon and Ebay.
The ones made with Thorium? Yes.
@@mjrippe Yes. Just like the Revigator was back then, there is still radioactive quackery going on today.
I didn’t even know such thing existed. Did people think that drinking g water from there was beneficial back in the day?
Yes, they thought it was a good thing. I'm going to do a video going into detail about this item.
Bro just actively exposing himself for our entertainment
Its not as bad as it seems.
Don't waist a banana skin a friend of mine escaped a police man after smashing a green house window with a banana skin in the 1950,s a radioactive banana skin might get donald of the hook.
I wonder what happened to the people that lined the inside of that? Kind of like the women that painted aircraft gages and watches(radium girls?)
The radium girls were ingesting a lot of radium because of using their mouths to make a point with their paint brushes. Someone lining the inside of a bunch of Revigators would be exposed to a decent amount of radiation but most of it would be external exposure I would imagine.
I don't know how it is made so that carnotite adheres to the ceramics, but remember, radium girls were working with a paint containing some radium salt. Although carnotite contains radium as uranium decays, chemically it's compound of uranium, potassium uranyl vanadate trihydrate.
@Ales2000 and that's bad...right?
@@joebeach7759 I just wanted to say that manufacturing of the revigator was much less harmful than painting dials with Ra-containing paint.
@@Ales.2000 I was just making a joke
Have you thought of adding some seeds to the revigorator and trying to mutate some plants? I understand this was done in the 1950s using various radioactive sources including x-rays.
I don’t think the source of radiation is strong enough. But you never know until you try.
Thank you for sharing non-disinformation.
No problem.
You really should look into the Eco Cube radon monitor. It is an ion chamber based device and is essential for anyone with a substantial uranium ore or revigator collection. If you get one you will be amazed at how different variables have a substantial effect on radon levels. I personally recommend at least 2 so you can monitor different areas of your house and get a better overall average.
Thanks for the recommendation. I already have an AirThings radon monitor but I'll take a look at this other one.
Just checked it out and it only goes up to 99 pCi/L. The AirThings goes up to 500 pCi/L...which I have needed in my testing.
@@RadioactiveDrew well air things might be alright for measuring radon inside the revigator but I would still recommend the eco cube for monitoring household levels as it is far more accurate.
@@mr.microcuries2078 where may I view data attesting to the relative inferior levels of the corentium instrument's accuracy?
Next time you should peel the banana and wash/decontaminate the cup and measure again. Now it is only half the experiment...
True…I could have shown how both the cup and the banana were no longer radioactive after 9 hours as well.
This revigator is not something you want to store near your bed or desk unless you want to increase your risk of developing cancer.
Right now I keep it in my office because I’m working on some videos that involve it. But usually it lives in the garage.
u should stick electronics in it like smartphones and see if it will crash or cause a fault with the software. edit....maybe a sd card? see if it corrupts anything on it.
I’m working on video dealing with this.
What's that cool shirt i keep seeing you wear in your vids?
The t-shirt is one of the designs I made and sell it on my site uraniumstore.com
@@RadioactiveDrew sweet!!! Found it, ordering now 🤠 that's a sick design and description! Blacksmiths of modernity! Definitely a metal band name 😁
☢🤯👀☢nicely done
I don't know anyone that washes their hands between peeling a banana and eating it. So throwing it back in the fruit bowl prob not a great idea?
The container is radioactive, subject humans to cancer?
This might increase your risk of cancer if you were drinking out of it all the time. People inadvertently drink radon infused ground water quite a bit.
@@RadioactiveDrewit is really shocking to have a household ware radioactive. Donno how can they are allowed. Innocent people might use it daily.
@@RadioactiveDrewthanks for the info. Informative to know regular healthy people can have resistance and only it harms when consistency built up.
Why did you use 2 different test devices for the before & after? I'm not questioning the viability of your test devices, but, some would. Just for 100% repeatability's sake. Science requires repeatability.
I used the Ludlum Model 14C in the beginning because its easier to show the reading down in the Revigator using that than with the Radeye B20.
nuclear pollution...
no chance of getting one of these in the uk, unless someone will send it
For some reason I thought the UK had something like this back in the 1920’s. I’ll have to look into it further.
@@RadioactiveDrew 👍👍👍
Ah damn I actually have a lot of carnotite ore in my backyard 😂