Answer
to Question 37
Answer
to Question 37
Inquiry Date: September 29, 2009
Thank you for contacting Integrated Environmental Management, Inc. (IEM). In your inquiry, you asked an IEM Certified Health Physicist the following question:
"I'm trying to find out the chemical form of some radioactive materials we've been notified of at one of our high schools. They were manufactured by Atomic Corporation of America with early 1960's dates on the vials. The isotope in question is PB210. I found one document referring to this company and it actually had a list of most of the isotopes I'm dealing with their chemical form and the price list. Unfortunately, PB210 was not listed."
Response: Wow. This one is a real stumper. Is the material in solid or liquid form? If it is in the form of a solid (i.e., powder) I would guess an oxide . . . unless it looks like metallic lead to you. Or it could be a salt or other inorganic compound. If it is in liquid form, it could be almost anything but most likely organic in nature. However, these are all just guesses so please don't take any of them seriously.
If the container that holds the material doesn't give you any clues as to its contents, your best bet for determining the chemical form is to send it to a licensed laboratory for analysis. However, be careful on how you package/label the package as you don't want to run afoul of the DOT rules for shipping radioactivity.
With that said, let me give you some general information about this material as a lead-in to a few words of warning. Lead-210 (Pb-210) is a decay product of the uranium decay series. It has a half-life if about 22 years and emits relatively low energy beta particles as it decays to its radioactive daughter, Bismuth-210. Bismuth-210 decays quickly by higher energy beta particle emission to its daughter, Polonium-210, which is an alpha particle emitter. If you use the correct instruments, you should see alpha and beta (as well as lower energy photon) radiation coming from your unknown material . . . although I do not recommend you open the container just to see if I'm right.
I'm going to take a guess that the high school that discovered the Pb-210 is not licensed to possess radioactivity. What's more, there are no exemptions from licensing for Pb-210 unless there is a specific exemption for your specific material type. Therefore, I recommend you contact the bureau of radiation protection in your State (see http://www.iem-inc.com/linkreg.html for contact information) to help you out of this pickle. They can advise you on how to handle and dispose of the material properly. In the meantime, and in light of the fact that you may have no clue as to how much Pb-210 is at the high school, please keep this little discovery out of the hands of curious students.