Neutropn source

[theapower]

My science background is in cell biology with practical skills in tissue culture and microscopy.
After retiring I became friends with an indigenous community in the Chilean Andes and realized what an enormous disadvantage it is having no electricity – this applies to over 1 billion people worldwide. As a result I have designed on produced a small wind generator that will supply the basics of safe lighting, communication, power tools. However, wind cannot power an industrial economy so I switched to the design of a portable thorium-fuelled molten salt reactor. Thorium fusion requires a source of neutrons so I am interested to know whether fusors could be used for this. Any help much appreciated. I live in North East England

[Richard Hull]

Fusors generate no usable energy under any circumstances.

Richard Hull

[John Futter]

Theapower how about your real name as the rules of this site say!!!

[theapower]

I have been asked to submit my real name rather than the name under which originally registered (ThEA Power). This is:
John David Simnett
Thanks

[Dolan Yanis]

Why you do not use the traditional methods: such as extracted Radium(226) from Uranium ore and Beryllium(9) scavanged from microwave magnetron. Radium(226) decays by releasing He(4). He(4)+Be(9)>C(12)+n. As to how you should arrange the elements to react in such a way to release the neutron and smash it into Thorium, I'm not sure. Another method is by using 15MeV x rays and smash atoms. High energetically x rays are able to remove neutrons from atoms.

[Mark Rowley]

The area circled in red needs to be changed to your real name.

Thanks in advance

DD00519A-3440-41E6-AAA4-5FFDBE5E09FD.jpeg (30.96 KiB) Viewed 2936 times

Mark Rowley

[Richard Hull]

We are not allowed to use radium in the U.S. by law or to extract it from Uranium. Even if allowed, the amount of radium needed would produce horrid and dangerous levels of Gamma radiation. It is why no one uses it as a neutron source any more.

Richard Hull

[Jim Kovalchick]

Be gone troll. Your kind is not welcome here.

[Yannick Verbelen]

Why you do not use the traditional methods: such as extracted Radium(226) from Uranium ore and Beryllium(9) scavanged from microwave magnetron. Radium(226) decays by releasing He(4). He(4)+Be(9)>C(12)+n. As to how you should arrange the elements to react in such a way to release the neutron and smash it into Thorium, I'm not sure. Another method is by using 15MeV x rays and smash atoms. High energetically x rays are able to remove neutrons from atoms.

I find that quite fascinating. Could you provide a reference for the claim that it's possible to create a RaBe neutron source using ceramic insulators from microwave ovens? It is my understanding that those ceramic insulators are BeO rather than metallic Be. Is there literature documenting successful experiments using BeO to build a neutron source using an alpha emitter and the (alpha, n) reaction?

It appears the amount of Ra-226 in ore is small and barely worth extracting/purifying, so would it not be more practical to use Am-241 from smoke detectors or Po-210 from anti-static brushes as alpha emitters instead? These are widely commercially available.

My apologies if these are trivial or dumb questions, I have a background in electrical engineering and I'm very new to nuclear physics.

[Richard Hull]

We do not make nor support the making of radio-isotope neutron sources here! They are illegal to own without an NRC license. Our fusors are our source of neutrons.

As a theoretical discussion, the world nuclear science community is pretty much using only Am241-Be sources in labs and institutions who need a small permanent neutron source. They must all obtain an NRC license to obtain, store and use one! Yes! Any Be chemical compound will work at grossly reduced efficiency compared to the metal.
The reasons for this one source supplanting all the rest is that it is very easily shielded. It will, effectively, last longer than any institution using it. (No need to ever replace it.)
All significantly useful neutron sources pose a severe environmental hazard. This is why licensing and verifiable stewardship are demanded by the NRC.
Fusors can be turned on and off with none of the environmental issues found in permanent sources. Fusors never put out the neutron numbers found in a permanent source. (Very weak source of neutrons and of extremely low duty cycle in doing so.)

Richard Hull

[Rich Feldman]

Yes, what Richard said about neutron sources that can be turned on and off with a switch.
And about government safety regulations for stewardship of strong radioisotope sources.

I learned there are similar rules for licensing and tracking of some ionizing radiation sources that are electric and switchable.
For example, x-ray generators for radiography.
I can lift with one hand a dental generator which, while energized, produces a flux of high-energy photons
equal to that from thousands of curies (kilograms of Ra-226) of radioisotope.

Am reminded of old field equipment for medical radiography using 60 keV gammas from Am-241 isotope sources.
Does anyone here know how the gamma activity of that isotope compares to its alpha activity?
I think It's because of gammas that we aren't supposed to sleep next to smoke detectors.
Some highly active 1960's-era Soviet smoke detectors use "plutonium" as alpha source, and become more hazardous as some Pu241 decays to Am241.

[John Futter]

We use 8 giga Becquerel Am sources on our gamma backscatter gauges that we sell / hire to do tomography on wooden power poles and wooden bridges.
we are now starting to replace with 70kV x-ray sources running a couple of hundred microamps on the tube.

I know this as I designed the electronics

Our Australasian Partner Distributer is
https://portacatindustries.com/?page_id=26
The regulatory authorities much prefer the x-ray version as when its off its not still radiating

[Yannick Verbelen]

Fusors never put out the neutron numbers found in a permanent source. (Very weak source of neutrons and of extremely low duty cycle in doing so.)

Thank you for elaborating, Richard. I'm a bit confused by the quote above, though. The Am-241 activity in a typical smoke detector is about 30 kBq, so if you build an AmBe source with it, even if it has an efficiency of 100%, would the number of neutrons produced not also be limited to 30,000 n/s? Considering every alpha particle only produces a single neutron? Whereas with fusors you could reach 10^5 - 10^6 n/s.

Commenting on the X-ray source analogy, I read in a report a while ago that until the 1980s portable XRF analysers used in the metallurgy industry used Am-241 sources in the order of a few MBq as source of 59 keV gammas because the X-ray tube technology could not yet be made sufficiently compact for a portable device. But nowadays all commercial portable XRF analysers use miniature X-ray tubes. I had the chance to use one a few years ago, and the dose rate at the aperture was in excess of 100 mGy/h so relatively high.

[Richard Hull]

All alpha sources with Be are unbelievably inefficient with the very finest efficiency it is well below 10,000 alphas/sec from the radio-isotope of choice mixed in flawlessly with Be dust to yield 1neutron/sec. and probably not even that good! There is a lot of ideas that seem reasonable at first blush related to radiation physics that just will not happen. 9,999 alphas will just be slowed to the point of not having the energy to make a neutrons with only one hitting at full energy a Be atom to make that 1 neutron. Thus, any neutron source relying on alpha isotopes is really just a helium generator with an occasional neutron emission.

Such information as above requires reading and study to discover. Read, read,read....

Re: XRF....We have a local scrap yard and they use an XRF "gun" with a strong Am241 source in it to identifiy high Ni alloys and other valuable metals that come in as scrap. They had to send one of their people to a short training school to become their registered rad-safe/source security officer before they were allowed to purchase it.

Richard Hull

[Dennis P Brown]

This is a perfect example of doing a lot of wrong things here - not that I too haven't been guilty from time to time. I assume this thread maker now uses their full and proper name (not gonna really check - not that concerned.) Next, using block quote's is not to be done - this is being violated constantly so stop doing it, please. Next discussing very unrelated topics in an introduction thread! Please stop and start a new thread in the appropriate (or there about) proper topic area/section.

Following the rules isn't just being a good member/manners - it keeps this forum understandable and searchable. Thanks (and let us all stop answering in this introduction thread, maybe )

[Paul_Schatzkin]

I have been asked to submit my real name rather than the name under which originally registered (ThEA Power). This is:
John David Simnett
Thanks

Ya know, we don't have a whole lot rules around here, but the ONE rule that has been rigorously enforced for like a decade now is: use your real name. Please change your registration accordingly. It's not like you didn't get clear indication of the policy when you signed up.

Some people. Jeezus.

--P