Making uranium glass

Well that was very Interesting indeed the Uranium compound. Poorman chemist made several Uranium complexes from Uranium salts that were Legal. I made several Instructables were 2000 CPM an Hr for 7 days doubled and tripled the growth of the lactobacillus bacteria without air and the clover grew 3 times as fast mainly from Gamma rays. I thought def it was going to kill the bacteria or clover. Well, bacteria divide very quickly like every 24 minutes you have millions of bacteria. The bacteria converts gamma rays directly into fuel.

Daniel Blake Shoemaker

Unfortunately dosimetry can get very complicated very quickly (but that complexity makes cool spectrometry science possible!). I should make it clear you should still use the energy units as they can be useful to counteracting the arbitrary CPM units that depend on the sensitivity of your GMC, PRM-9000 and what viewers might have/can understand on a scale as you did, just disclaimer that it’s a very rough estimate and is ‘not energy compensated’. Note that neither of your meters will have a more accurate energy reading but, the PRM-9000 will give you better resolution, better low-level sensitivity and the ability to detect lower energy alpha particles and X-rays. I realize I also forgot to mention in my previous comment that Geiger counters are typically calibrated in energy units for gamma dose rates only so the mica window should be covered with an alpha/beta shield when using energy units. Good luck with future projects! If you’re unsure about anything don’t hesitate to message me (Patreon or Discord).

WizardTim

I really hope you were using a correctly rated respirator when you weren't working in the fume hood.

The time exposure wasnt even something that occurred to me, but you are totally right. It probably isnt super accurate to compare the two.

Nile Red

You are correct. I thought the corrected counter would be relatively accurate, but from what you're saying, it seems like that probably isn't the case. I added this edit to my already pinned comment on the video. Thanks for the input!

Nile Red

You are probably right and i suspected that I could probably just use the nitrate. I kind of wanted to uranium chem though :0

Nile Red

hmm, im not sure. Maybe if it gets dented or damage.

Nile Red

Thanks for pointing that out. I fixed it for the final release

Nile Red

It was intentional, but it does look a bit weird

Nile Red

Are you aware that you compare µSv (from the chart with the dentist's X-ray) with µSv/hr from the Geiger counter ? Your comparison, that when carrying the beads for two hours in your hand you'll get the same amount of µSv, is technically correct, but by converting Sv/hr to Sv you neglect the time interval of the radiation. A high amount of radiation in a short time produces more cell damage (because the cells have no time to repair damage) than a low amount of radiation over long periods of time. (It's like comparing force and pressure. A gravitational force of 1N acts differently when it is applied via a 100g bar of chocolate i.e. a big area or via the tip of a needle i.e. perforating your skin.) So, IMHO, it would be better to do the conversion the other way round: a dentist's X-Ray takes about 30 seconds at 10 µSv, so this corresponds to about 12000 µSv/hr. Therefore, I expect the cell damage to be way worse than from the 5 µSv/hr glass beads - and that is not taking into account that most of the Alpha radiation will be absorbed by a layer of dead skin cells in contrast to the penetrating x-rays. Please correct me if I am mistaken.

Dominik Wondrousch

@NileRed I only just saw this on YouTube and am worried you’ve misunderstood the units on your Geiger counter. Almost all Geiger muller tube based “dosimeters” are incapable of giving you accurate equivalent dose-rate energy units (Sv/hr). What you said in your video makes me think you believe your unit can actually discriminate between α/β/γ and their energies, this is a common misconception and is NOT correct. Your unit can only count discrete ionization events in the tube, it is impossible for it to measure the energy of those events. To get very rough estimate number in µSv/hr your unit simply multiplies the CPM by a conversion factor which is only valid for the isotope it was calibrated with, often Cs137. Measuring anything else in Sv/hr with a Geiger counter will yield results that can be out by orders of magnitude. To measure this correctly you need a proper dosimeter which will often use a scintillation crystal to measure the energy of each individual detection event (note that those are almost always more expensive). In this situation measuring U238 and its decay products (primary Th234 @ 270 keV) will artificially inflate the reading. While in this this case it’s causing you to overestimate the danger be careful if you work with things that give off primary high energy gamma radiation as you will get falsely low readings. The +/-10% accuracy for energy units most Geiger counters specify is only for when you’re measuring Cs137, the 10% is due to the accuracy of how those devices are calibrated and their response drift with environmental factors.

WizardTim

I do a lot of ceramic glaze work and glaze/glass ingredients generally interact as oxides, meaning had you used the Uranyl nitrate, it would have likely decomposed to uranium oxide and dissolved into the glass . That said, it was way cooler watching you make the sodium diuranate. I suspect that converted to sodium oxide and uranium oxide when it was heating up in the kiln.

You are correct and I messed that up a bit. Alpha particles are indeed the most ionizing, but are less of a threat when working with them externally. Internally, they are way worse. I am going to make some modifications in the final video. Thank you for pointing that out.

Nile Red

I think you might have gotten the dangerousness of alpha, beta, gamma at the end backwards. I could be totally wrong, but I thought alpha is the most dangerous because it's the most energetic. It's the one you can stop the easiest, while gamma being the hardest to stop. When stating radiation in Sieverts, alpha particles are weighted 20 times, while beta and gamma are weighted with 1.

Regarding the fluorescence of the sodium diuranate; I noticed when I made sugar based quantum dots that when the concentration was too high the fluorescence was quite low. What I assumed at the time was that the dots were reabsorbing the light they emitted, so having a lower concentration in solution actually made the solution fluoresce brighter due to a higher mean free path for the photos to escape the solution. I’d be curious to see if the sodium diuranate would also fluoresce better in a low concentration solution.

Joshua Pedrick

Yes, it depends on the source. Like I work with Uranium ore I NEVER remove it from the package and it a good source of gamma and is millions of times weaker than 1 rad. For my collection, the amount of Radiation is like a million times weaker than a simple x ray. You should search Antiproton for more info. I would not work with solulble salts like he did but i am sure he knows the risks before hand. He not Cody.

Daniel Blake Shoemaker

Oh, you just explaned for me, why the namne in Vaseline!

Emil Almberg

I find this super interesting! Yes, I already have an collections of OLD glasses. May I ask, I bought a vaccum chamber similar to yours, in the manual it says that the chamber can implode of too high vaccum, is it really likely? I mean, you run your pump for hours!

Emil Almberg

Speaking of Geiger counters, take one with you on the plane on your next flight; radiation levels increase reasonably linearly with altitude within the range commercial airliners fly at.

John Ioannidis

it used to be called "Vaseline glass" in the USA, as at the time Vaseline had a greenish color. I have a few pebbles of it somewhere in my souvenirs box, I'll try to find them over the weekend and post pictures, along with counts from my Geiger counter (which also handles α particles).

John Ioannidis

cool video, it may be even reproducable! @nile are your giving away some of the uranium glass beads to your patreons?

Sese Schneider

I think you can also use uranium acetate for making uranium glass which you used to be able to buy off of eBay years ago for a reasonable price.

Matthew Wilson

I've got a nice Vaseline glass collection. My parents have been buying me pieces for Christmas the past couple years ever since they found out I was into collecting the stuff.

Matthew Wilson

Wonderful video! As @Brendan Upton said, any chance of a giveaway or donation-raiser of the small beads? Would be so cool to have a chance to have something made by you!

The video seemed really cool, but I did notice one thing with the editing of it. The video seemed to get much louder at 25:43. Other than that cool video!

Daniel Sidi

Loved the video. Glass is a fascinating material in general. Any chance of a uranium glass giveaway?

Brendan Upton

It's interesting to me that the glass only started to fluoresce after it cooled down. The way the cracks formed on the large piece was also rather fascinating. I'm really curious about the cleanup. Does the Geiger counter report elevated levels on any of the equipment you used after cleaning?

Ooh interesting stuff. Though I can't help to notice your camera zoomed in at the start during your first sentence in the video, not sure if it was intentional. Minor thing though, and not specifically chem related. 🧪

I've heard of the heavy metal poisoning risk from uranium salts. Caution is well warranted.

Patrick Sweetman

Oh God, please don’t mess with radiation. Chemistry is one thing but most chemicals don’t get through your suit. Radiation will just go right through. Don’t even mess with minor amounts of radiation. You don’t realize it now because you’re young but radiation of any amount can affect you, God forbid. Stay the hell away from that. Mess with modern day smokeless gunpowder manufacture, osmium, and beryllium instead, but for God’s sake’s alive keep it off of you and out of you!

Tyler

2000 CPM my ore will send off that well around 1000 in 1 minute.

Daniel Blake Shoemaker

Interestingly I am glad you are working safely with uranium compounds. I have ore that glows green under UV but it illegal to extract it. You could make UV lights and put them on top as a LED Uranium lamp. Instructable.... https://www.instructables.com/id/Uranium-Lamp/

Daniel Blake Shoemaker

You were specifically banned from doing it? That's not good lol

Nile Red

Yay! Something that I wanted to do but was specifically bard from by the us government. Hopefully Nile can get away with it on account of being Canadian and honestly much better than me at being educational.

CodyDon Reeder

your titles are more effective than clickbait

Emran Shafaq