Admittedly, this is from my memories of the radiation lab durring high school chemistry class, but I believe we were told it was from an isotope of cesium. Todd (Yeah, I noticed over in a.c.b that you were on panix a day or two ago)
In rec.crafts.metalworking Ned Simmons wrote: (snip)
Shows how much my memory has degraded since high school. At least it was one that sounded similar. Todd
None of the naturally occurring Ce's are shown to have radiation. Ce136 0.19% Ce138 0.26% Ce140 88.47% Ce142 11.08%
Th232 100% shows a half-life of 1.39x10^10 years, alpha and gamma
ThO2 3050-C ;) CeO2 2600-C ZrO2 2700-C MgO 2800-C BeO 2585-C while still retaining the high melting point, though. Must be
Alvin in AZ (libertarian and librarian;)
Depleted uranium is radioactive and anyone uncovering a shell made from it gets radioactive poisoning, bad stuff...
False nonsense.
Vaughn
Depleted uranium is a mild alpha emitter. Your skin will stop the alpha particles. Breathing in particles of DU is a different matter, but just picking one up is not likely to cause a problem.
Depleted uranium is used as counterweights in the control system of many aircraft. It is usually re-cycled when aircraft are junked. I also saw a pair of DU penatraters from some tank rounds at an Army Surplus store, but they wanted a young fortune for them. Far more than the metal content was worth.
What in the world do you want to do with it any way? Its difficult to machine, very hard, also its pyrophoric. Meaning the hot metal shavings have a tendence to burn when exposed to the O2 in the air. Breathing the fumes from this can be deadly, as others have mentioned DU gives off alpha radiation, which is relatively safe, until it gets inside your lungs.
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