Re: Radioactive vinegar bottle ?!?!

[Dave Derenzo <dave@UIC.EDU>]

Doesn't sound like it, he describes the bottle as white.  And from

personal experience, you can barely detect the uranium in vaseline glass,

the best test is an ultraviolet light.  All of the glass collecting

experts say that a geiger counter is a very poor way of detecting

vaseline glass.  My understanding is that most of the uranium oxides

are red, yellow, orange, black, and brown.  I think the guess about

glazing might be right, but it might be thorium, which has some pretty

energetic (beta) daughters.  I have seen thorium on structural

tiles.  I would think the reading from the ion chamber indicates

beta emission from a high concentration of material near the surface

(like glazing).  Try shielding it with about 1/2 an inch of plastic

or paper, that should reduce it significantly if it is beta.


Dave Derenzo

UIC Radiation Safety Officer


At 10:49 AM 9/16/02, you wrote:

> In
>
> a message dated 9/16/02 9:25:46 AM Mountain Daylight Time,
>
> Bob.Westerdale@ametek.com writes: 
>
>
>
> > Just by chance I happened to wave a
> >
> > survey meter at this bottle, and to my surprise it was slightly 
> >
> > radioactive- approximately .2 mR/hr with a Victoreen Ion
> >
> > Chamber.    I'd assume this manufactured this way
> >
> > intentionally  ( maybe?)-- any idea why?   
> >
> > Glazing?  ( ala  Fiesta ware?) 
>
>
>
> What was referred to as "vaseline glass" was glass doped with
>
> uranium.  It has a yellow/yellow-green fluorescence, but the color
>
> may have been bleached out by sun exposure.  The main use for
>
> uranium salts, in the 1932 Encyclopedia Britannica, was for producing
>
> bright yellow and orange pottery glazes and doping colors for
>
> glass.  I have also seen deep blue glazes that have quite a gamma
>
> emission, and I assume are cobalt(?).  I don't know what
>
> radionuclide would produce white, so one assumption is that it is
>
> bleached. 
>
>
> Ruth   
>
> Ruth Weiner, Ph. D. 
>
> ruthweiner@aol.com 



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