I’m sure most people don’t know that some of the consumer products around us contain Radioactive Material / s (RAM) (ie uranium).
I am posting this, not to scare the public, but to raise awareness of common consumer products that contain this RAM. Also, this is to inform you that radiation has many uses in our daily lives.
Take a look at the following pictures and see if you recognize them if they are present in your homes.
Check chewing gum
Check-Up Gum helped fight plaque. As the gum was chewed, small granules of zirconium silicate (the third ingredient listed) scraped the teeth clean.
The reason Check · Up Gum is presented here is that the zirconium silicate contained high levels of uranium and thorium (eg 100 pCi / g). The amount of zirconium silicate in the gum was such that the uranium concentration was about 7 pCi per gram of gum. Since the uranium series is in secular equilibrium, chewing gum also contains 7 pCi of Ra-226 per gram. As a matter of interest, there have been many situations where this level of radius in the ground has required corrective action.
Although Check · Up Gum is no longer produced, zirconium silicate is still used in toothpastes and some toothpastes. However, consumers can be sure that the radiation dose is negligible: the radioactive material is bound to the zirconium silicate and would not be assimilated even if ingested.
Tape dispenser
This is a 3M Model C-15 Decorative Masking Tape Dispenser. It is slightly radioactive due to the thorium-containing monazite sand that was used as ballast. This particular example came from a 55-gallon drum of tape dispensers that the US Army was about to dispose of as radioactive waste.
Jewelers
As a result of an investigation conducted in early 1988 by the Los Angeles County Department of Health, various state radiation control programs in the US issued warnings on the manufacture and use of jewelry made from watch parts. ancient. These parts often included radioluminescent clock faces and hands. The jewelry, which included brooches, bracelets, earrings, etc. It had become quite popular, and because it was easy to produce, the typical manufacturer was a small business that operated out of someone’s home or apartment. Production is known to have taken place in California, Oregon, Texas, and Pennsylvania. Radiation control programs in Tennessee, Texas, and possibly some other states invited the public to bring suspicious jewelry into their offices to monitor its radioactivity.
The usual mode of manufacture was to disassemble old watches, clean the parts with some type of abrasive, polish the parts, assemble the jewels and possibly coat them with an acrylic spray. It appears that the manufacturers were unaware of the potential hazards.
Although some of the jewelry was worn in direct contact with the skin and several facilities were found to be contaminated (for example, up to 50,000 cpm), there were no reports of injuries to the people who wore or made the jewelry. However, one person, who had been making such jewelry for six years, was found to have “1/30 of a body charge of radium-226”.
Water softening salt with potassium chloride
Hard water contains more minerals, especially calcium and magnesium, than plain water. This can lead to scale build-up on pipes and appliances. A water softener is used to reduce the concentration of these minerals.
In essence, a water softener consists of an ion exchange resin that removes minerals as water flows through it. After a while, the resin becomes saturated with these minerals and stops working. At this point, a saline solution is added to the resin. The salt is exchanged with the accumulated minerals and allows them to be flushed out of the fabric softener down a drain. This rejuvenates the fabric softener.
A variety of materials can be used as a water softening salt, for example sodium chloride (NaCl) or potassium chloride (KCl). In the example shown here, the salt from the water softener is more than 99% potassium chloride.
All potassium contains potassium-40, a natural beta gamma emitter, and in large enough quantities it is easily detected with a simple measuring meter. This bag, for example, could not pass through a monitor at a nuclear power plant without triggering an alarm.
Smoke detectors
The ionization chamber smoke detector was invented in the early 1940s in Switzerland and introduced to the US in 1951.
The sensitive component of the ICSD is an ionization chamber that is open to the atmosphere (photo below left). A radioactive source within the chamber emits radiation that ionizes the air in the chamber and makes it conductive.
Ionization chamber smoke detectors almost always use alpha emitters as the source due to the high ionization density they produce.
Most ICSDs sold today use americium oxide-241 (Am-241) as the radioactive source. The typical activity of a modern residential ICSD is about 1 uCi, while the activity in one that is used in public and commercial buildings can reach 50 uCi. In 1980, the average activity used in a residential smoke detector was about 3 uCi, three times more than today.
Am-241 is an alpha emitter, but it also emits a low energy gamma ray (59.5 keV). Am-241 is mixed with gold and incorporated into a sandwich made of gold and silver foil. The fountain is 3 to 5mm in diameter and is crimped or welded in place within the chamber.
Other nuclides have also been used. NRC records indicate that approximately 124,000 ICSDs were sold between 1971 and 1986 using nickel-63 (Ni-63). These units averaged approximately 10 microcuries of Ni-63 each.
Radium-226 (radium sulfate) was the first radioactive source used in smoke detectors. According to NUREG / CP-0001, American producers stopped making smoke detectors containing Ra-226 in 1963 when they switched to Am-241. However, according to NCRP 95, it would appear that radio-containing ICSDs continued to be sold in the US until at least 1978. A typical residential smoke detector contained 0.05 uCi of Ra-226, but some contained as much as 0.1 uCi. Commercial smoke detectors employed considerably higher activities.