Sunday, April 5, 2020

Alpha radiation makes sparks, detects smoke, and eliminates static cling



Interesting applications of a strong polonium-210 alpha radiation source.  The half life is only 140 days, so the Staticmaster brushes must be replaced every year or so.

Great technical article on ionization smoke detectors: https://circuitcellar.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/CC2011110601.pdf

Staticmaster refill: https://www.amazon.com/Static-Master-4331991414-Static-Master-Refill/dp/B0000ALKDH/

Ionization chamber: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32838644316.html

Carl Willis' video on spark gap detectors. (check out his whole channel) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8GlzUjYazs

Polonium poisoning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko
https://sci-hub.tw/10.1088/1361-6498/aa58a7

Mightyohm geiger counter: https://mightyohm.com/blog/products/geiger-counter/

Applied Science on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AppliedScience
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8 comments:

  1. BruceApril 6, 2020 at 9:32 AM

    Interesting demonstration! I used to work on gravitometers. They had very delicate quartz sensors, and the instruments had Americium sources to knock static off. The amount depended upon the individual instrument, but some of them were quite hot.

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  2. r-b0April 8, 2020 at 11:31 PM

    Fantastic demonstration! I build one of these as an undergraduate a few years ago, similarly inspired by Carl Willis.

    My friend took a quite high quality long exposure shot of the device in action, link below.

    https://rjbyron.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/reidisabada1.jpg

    [the nitrite gloved hand is purely aesthetic]

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  3. Kickstarter Engineered To SurviveApril 10, 2020 at 6:46 AM

    can you do a video on air filters and mask filters....
    Area of the filter and what the proper face volocity ties into it, cfm. proper filter flow rate?

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    Replies
    1. Kickstarter Engineered To SurviveApril 10, 2020 at 6:57 AM

      Just feel that most diy masks are poor design.

      ok getting a good seal to the face and seal the thread line is important.

      but they are skipping the filter material specs.
      How much filter area (Larger area lowers the air velocity)?
      What velocity air flow rate though the filter material?
      How does the CFM being low and high (reference to target cfm) does it do to filter efficiency at removing virus?
      What is the CFM, Flow rate and air velocity of a person breathing?

      Delete
  4. DogApril 29, 2020 at 8:45 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  5. DogApril 29, 2020 at 9:28 AM

    Is it possible to share the first .stl file for printing? ;-)

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  6. NitrousJune 20, 2020 at 2:19 PM

    Hi Ben, great thread, as usual. Just noted your amazon source of polonium is "out of stock". This product (particularly, the refills) are on sale at Adorama... ie on line photo supply sources. https://www.adorama.com/cpsmr3.html?rfkref=productPage

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  7. UnknownDecember 2, 2020 at 11:54 PM

    Great show and series, Ben. Learning more in your Applied Science Y/T channel in one month than previous two decades of life.

    Have a question about radioactive contaminated water and don't want to attract too much attention by doing so in a public session.

    Contact me via email ID. Ed Xavier

    ReplyDelete