Re: minigenerators

[Jack Couch <jgcouc@planetx.bloomu.edu>]

Michael Thomason wrote:
>Jack Couch reports the Oxford Cs-137/Ba-137m minigenerator releases "a
>lot" of 30-year half-life Cs-137 as well as the 1.3-minute half-life
>Ba-137m.  I too have found this to be true.  Oxford, however, claims no
>Cs-137 is released if the correct EDTA solution is used.
>
It's entirely possible that we have a bad batch of EDTA. Not being much of
a chemist, I asked a chem major to mix some and I trusted his work. I'd
better test it.

>Have others observed this?  Many colleges and high schools are using this
>generator intended for student use without taking any precautions for
>long-lived radioactive waste.

Your point is a good one about school teachers and students inadvertently
contaminating themselves and their labs with measureable quantities of  the
stuff. Discovery of an event like this happening in some local high school
could easily make the national news. Heck, if it has happened to you and me
in university labs, it must happen a lot in secondary schools as well.
>
>Jack, can you quantify the Cs-137 activity in your samples from the Oxford
>minigenerator?
>
Only in units of *contaminated fingers and sinks*.  There is plenty to set
off a GM survey meter, but what the concentration is or what fraction of an
ARLI we have in the residue, I have no idea. We'll try to quantify it next
time we do the experiment.

Jack Couch
Bloomsburg University
<jgcouc@planetx.bloomu.edu>