AW: Green glowing powder emitting gammas

[Franz Schönhofer <franz.schoenhofer@chello.at>]

Chuck,



Some ideas...



There is a lot of information missing: Is the powder glowing in the dark

or only under UV excitation? If the first is true, then it might be

material for a luminous dial repair set. On the other hand I have a

"highly" radioactive alarm clock from the beginning of last century, the

luminous dials of which do not emit any visible light any more. This is

also true for a wrist watch I received as a boy in the late fifties. It

is well known, that the phosphor used is degraded with time both from

environmental impacts and also the constant alpha-irradiation. If it

glows only during UV-irradiation it might be still material intended for

luminous dials. Both my examples do so. On the other hand it might be a

uranium compound. Some uranium minerals, like tobernite, autunite,

meta-autunite, urano-circit or meta-uranocircit show beautiful

fluorescence. I use to show it to friends visiting. 



What bothers me with the description is, that it should be "slightly

radioactive". The next question is: At what distance? My very simple

pocket dose rate meter shows in about 20 cm distance to the alarm clock

mentioned above a dose-rate roughly ten times background radiation. The

material for a repair kit would have to hold a manifold of the amount on

my single alarm-clock. 



Maybe Bill Kolb would be the expert to help solving this question?



Please keep me informed on the outcome. I have always been interested in

the history of radioactivity and its application. I also have done some

work on radioactivity in consumer products and investigated the transfer

of tritium from luminous dials to the human body - with much surprising

results.



Best regards,



Franz



Franz Schoenhofer

PhD, MR iR

Habicherg. 31/7

A-1160 Vienna

AUSTRIA

phone -43-0699-1168-1319





> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----

> Von: owner-radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu [mailto:owner-

> radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu] Im Auftrag von Chuck Cooper

> Gesendet: Montag, 31. Jänner 2005 09:01

> An: radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu

> Betreff: Green glowing powder emitting gammas

> 

>   On another list discussing art materials, I ran across this recent

post:

> 

> > I have green glow powder that says it is

> > from the united states radium corp

> >

> > and it is radioactive - slightly

> >

> > my scintilating detector picks it up at a distance.

> 

> I can only assume that he has some old radium paint base, should I try

> to track this guy down?

> 

> 

> 

> 

>

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