Measure the half-life decay products
When an unstable isotope decays, you can do it directly (to a stable element), or you can continue to decline through their "children." The first case would be given for example in the K-40 and the second in the U-233 or Th-232, to name elements.
As these products undergo a transmutation (change of chemical element), often can be separated from the progeny of their products, to measure the lifetime of these.
A typical example is the Ba-137m generator very popular in USA, but not alone.
The PFDC has left us a generator of Pa-134m, with a half-life of 77 seconds,
website for all who want to do it home. The Pa-134m is obtained from U-238, DU typical, fairly easy to get.
But there are still more generators of this type. As Thorium-232 blankets have seen that are quite popular, can be a generator of this type will not be fácilmente.El generator Pa-134m, as this is not part of Thorium, but will be Bi-212.
The procedure is easy: enter the mat in 40 ml 1-3 M hydrochloric acid and allowed to react for several hours to ensure full.
So, just need a bit of nickel, which we will introduce in the solution of HCl, best while hot. What we took a few seconds, dry it well (do not worry, you hardly pollute), and start measuring.
would have to leave a couple of hundreds of CPM. The Bi-212 has a life of 1 hour., So a day should fail completely. But do not worry if this is not true ... The Bi-212 decays by 64% a beta particle emitting Po-212, with an average life of 0.2 us by an alpha particle decays to Pb-208 (stable) . The other 36% are Tl-208, which decays by alpha particle Pb-208.
The Tl-208 to decay emitting a photon at 2.2 MeV, just why the nuclear industry no one wants U-233, for how difficult it is to stop gamma rays.
While we measure the half-life of Bi-212, we can do with a table like the PFDC (just not every 10 seconds. But every 15 min.), We hardly offset the Tl-208 accounts, the yes they will achieve will screw us calculate the activity of Bi-212, and that because it can decay to Po-212 and Tl-208, we need an energy analyzer.
timely scientific explanation: this is due to the known effect of lead, bismuth and Po tend to settle in these electropositive metals such as nickel in this case.
When I made this thorianite experiment I did, so I guess that should come as a blanket of thorium.
By the way, you can use any nickel-plated metal, pure nickel is not necessary.
Salu2!
