On Jan 13, 2011, at 5:18 PM, Rick Karlquist wrote:
The other problem for the garage builder is that one of the Rb isotopes is slightly radioactive. Probably not OK to have in your garage.
I used to perform Rb/Sr geochronology "wet bench" chemistry in college. Rb-87 has a half-life on the order of ~48.8 billion years. Several multiples of the estimated age of the universe. The potassium-40 in your own body is a much greater threat, followed by C-14, and various natural sources, smoke detectors, camping lantern mantles, etc... I understand the average person has several thousand K40 decay events in their body per second.
Handling pure Rb is another thing entirely. It is quite moisture sensitive / pyrophoric, and tends to form shock sensitive peroxides even when submerged under oil. You really need to store the stuff in a vacuum, or under an inert atmosphere. But since we're also discussing Cesium, I should point out that it is actually far worse in this regard. You could probably safely handle a small quantity of Rb in a home lab environment for a short period of time. Pure Cesium would be a significant risk.
Rob _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
