So it is handled in this glove box on dhe.

I'm not qualified to use such equipment, So Mark who works?

They will tell us about.

So this is a This is a vial of ammunition to 41.

She's one of the isotopes of armor issue, and this was separated from some plutonium because one of the isotopes of plutonium plutonium to 41 decays into americium 2 41 with 1/2 life of 14 years.

It turns out you can make americium a number of ways it's generated when nuclear weapons are detonated.

It's also found in spent nuclear waste from nuclear reactors.

So, for example, if you took a turn off material that they're being used in a nuclear reactor and took to one side, they'd be about 100 grams.

In that turn would be americium.

This is actually ultraviolet visible spectroscopy cell, and it goes into this holder, which has to fiber optic connections to it.

And what happens is we pass light from the spectrometer through these fiber optic cables through the solution and out the other side.

On dhe, the spectrometer provides a fingerprint off what element is in that solution?

And that fingerprint is very specific.

To embarrass you.

Amorous, um, is the only trans uranium element that you're likely to have a sample off in your house.

In fact, you may have several samples because amorous, um, is used in very small quantities.

Nanograms.

1/1000 of a millionth of a gram in smoke detectors that we all have in our houses to prevent.

That's being two deaths.

If there's a fire, they were meant to put it off.

Hi.

You forgot this midget Dull actually got Martin Polyakov.

Old smoke detector way.

Haven't taken the working one.

No, that wouldn't be safe.

But we took one that stopped working.

This is the inside of the smoke detector, and you can see here actually says americium.

Well, I'm a wrist, um is a strong emitter of gamma rays on alpha particles on these air used in the smoke detector.

Because if you get particles of smoke, this whole stuff that makes smoke look white, they intercept the radiation and stop the radiation getting from the radioactive source to the detector in your smoke detector.

So, in fact, what is measuring is a drop in the currents going between the source and the detector on DDE, the alarm goes off on.

It says that there's no 0.9 micro curies.

Now, I don't know about you, but I don't normally remember what no 0.9 micro curies really means.

It means there's North 0.26 micrograms and you might sit then think, What earth does he mean by that?

Well, if you think of a grain of rice, it weighs 100,000 times less than the grain of rice.

It's got quite a history to a CZ.

Well, it was first discovered in 1944 but this was kept secret for a whole year until it was eventually allowed out into the public domain On.

The reason it was kept secret is because it was part of the Manhattan Project when there was all of a search to generate nuclear weapons so people didn't want competitive groups to understand how far ahead they were compared to competitions.

They kept the discovery of an entire element in the periodic table secret for a whole year.

But then it was leaked out on then, basically, they had to tell everybody in nuclear fuel re processing that the objective is to produce a pure uranium on a pure plutonium product stream.

Now here it Sellafield.

Those materials are put into storage.

And all the time one of the isotopes of plutonium plutonium to 41 decays into an isotope of ammunition ammunition to 41.

And so, over time, americium grows into these plutonium stocks.

So it's possible to separate the Amerasian from the plutonium by chemical methods.

When it was first prepared, it was prepared because people predicted that these elements ought to be synthesize Herbal.

Just they didn't exist naturally, of course, this was a challenge to chemists.

There's a little bit of interesting story behind the census of these elements, cause they were quite arduous, like long winded piece of plutonium was coated onto some platinum foil, oxidized to plutonium dioxide.

Put in a cyclotron.

Once this was over with, they would take this foil, and they would dissolve what they wanted away with concentrated nitric acid.

And then they had to precipitate what they wanted was a hydroxide using an ammonium re agent and dissolved it in McCloy acid.

Some curium was removed.

You then had the amorous IAM on the people who did this process found it's so tedious and so arduous that they actually referred to is pandemonium, which is Greek for all demons or hell.

What is interesting is that amorous IAM is an element which may become more useful in the future.

It may be able to replace plutonium in batteries for spacecraft and so on.

So currently, plutonium to 30 eighties used.

But to be able to generate that within Europe would require a very expensive infrastructure to be put into place, including a source of net union to 37 generation building a reactor specifically for converting to name into plutonium to 38.

And it all becomes very expensive.

Production of 2 30 A.

Stopped in the U.

S.

A number of decades ago, and they haven't resumed production to this date.

So stocks are running low.

European Space Agency would like to have an independent supply off these power sources, so they've commissioned a program of work toe.

Look at an alternative to plutonium to 38 and it's possible that I'm rushing to 41 could fulfill this role.

I'm risking to 41 doesn't produce the same amount of power, but it could be used in smaller applications.

I don't like the names of elements that are named after countries because I feel chemistries and international subject, though I suppose that amorous IAM, although it's clearly derived from America, doesn't sound terribly like America.

And therefore it's not bad as a name on one Something's got a name, it's difficult to change it and everybody calls it amorous iam.

So we're stuck with it like that on rotated Around.

Nothing much happens.

Let me put it vertical on.

It stays where it is.