Gamma Spectrometry Forum

Alright, here is three 10 minute runs for comparison. Unattenuated, 1mm cadmium plus 0.8mm copper, and 2mm tin plus 0.8mm copper. Both the cadmium and tin effectively attenuate the 59keV gamma ray from the 241americium. The tin being twice as thick only reduced the total count rate by ~0.3Bq. For co...

I think tin would work. I’m out of town right now but when I get home I can try attenuating with tin and tin+copper to see how well it works compared to cadmium.

This is the source from a RID-6M. I'm using my modified GS1100A and an ASUS Xonar SE sound card. The detector is the model 7530 1" NaI(Tl) from Far West Technology Inc which is very sensitive between 30keV and 600keV. The attenuator is 1.1mm of pure cadmium in the form of 2 neutron activation f...

Here's a spectrum of 40ish year old reactor grade plutonium with significant 241Am and 237U buildup. 59keV peak attenuated with cadmium. spectrum has been running for 32 hours and counting. 241Am/237U from 241Pu at 59 and 208keV, 238Pu at 43 and 152keV, 239Pu at 129 and 203keV. calibration is only a...

I mean. I did it in my shop, not my kitchen. And everything I used is a household chemical available at any store. But yeah. Thanks for the hate I guess.

I should add that the ore I ground up was a different piece than the one pictured. I brought back a couple kilograms of material and chose from the less aesthetic material to mill.

I’ve been recovering from a mild case of Covid. I’m fully vaccinated so I never got seriously ill, but still had to stay home from work for 10 days. Boredom led me to dig out my hydrometallurgy supplies and do a carbonate extraction on some uranium ore I collected this past summer. The ore is uranin...

It’s very obscure and as best as I can tell has exactly one use. Detecting microgram quantities of fluoride in aqueous solutions through a very tedious process. I have a bunch of google alerts set for various terms that bring up old chemical reagents and NORM. I had no idea what the chloranilate ion...

I acquired a few grams of thorium chloranilate (C12Cl4O8Th) recently. Spectrum collected with my 20x100mm NaI-Tl detector.

I’m not really set up for xrf but I’ll give it a go.