Re: Working life of sealed industrial sources

[David Scherer <scherer@uiuc.edu>]

At 10:13 AM 10/7/96 -0500, you wrote:
>Radsafers,
>
>I believe one of the more notorious failures may have been,
>as Wes Dunn noted earlier, more one of device.  That is, some
>years ago industrial air cleaners used Ra-226 sources in the
>nozzles (?) to de-ionize air.
>
>Rumor has it that source material was released into many 
>containers being "cleaned".  Unfortunately, the company was
>a major food processor and containers (filled with food) so 
>cleaned apparently did make it to market.
>
>Anyone recall the particulars?

I recall a problem with Po-210 static eliminators in about 1986-87.  As I
recall the Po was in small ceramic spheres that under certain conditions
could be released from the device.  If the microspheres were ingested, the
Po was not expected to be released.  If you consider the microsperes to be
the sources, they did not fail.  If you consider the matrix holding the
cermaic spheres to be the source, it did fail.

Regards
Dave Scherer
scherer@uiuc.edu