[ RadSafe ] Po-210- Make it by irradiating bismuth

[parthasarathy k s]

You can prepare Po-210 by irradiating Bismuth in a reactor and separating Po-210 from the stuff. The fire at Windscale reactor released large amounts of Po-210. This fact was kept under wraps for many years, You can get an idea about the fire and references to polonium release from the following:
1) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3309842/Windscale-fire-We-were-too-busy-to-panic.html (Release of polonium 210 is not mentioned even in this article)
2)http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/1988/feb/01/polonium-210-windscale-fire

I was surprised to see that the name of Dunster H J wrongly spelt in the report


regards
Parthasarathy



________________________________
From: "Johansen, Kjell" <Kjell.Johansen at nexteraenergy.com>
To: "radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu" <radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu>P
Sent: Monday, 12 September 2011, 22:49
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Po-210

How does one produce Po-210 in a reactor?  I used to measure Po-210 in lake sediments as a proxy for its parent Pb-210 to determine sedimentation rates.  The sedimentation rate was based on the fact that it is a decay product of airborne Rn-220-> Po-218->Bi-214->Pb-210->Po-210 and that its parent Pb-210 is not in equilibrium with the Ra-226 in the sediments.

Kjell Johansen
NextERA Energy Point Beach
kjell.johansen at NextERAEnergy.com

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