I saw in the Newspaper Hesingbors Dagblad, that Fow News has noticed my little project.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/08/02/swedish-man-builds-nuclear-reactor-in-his-kitchen/?test=faces

Som more news:

http://gizmodo.com/5826876/man-gets-arrested-before-he-can-pull-off-his-kitchen-nuclear-reactor
http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/swedish-man-detained-for-building-nuclear-reactor-in-kitchen-20110802-ncx
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/swedish-man-detained-for-building-nuclear-reactor-in-kitchen/story-e6frfku0-1226107009015
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/swedish-man-detained-for-building-nuclear-reactor-in-kitchen/story-fn3dxity-1226107009015

It has been written about me in many swedish newspaper, and I even heard it on the radio. Some of the articles. In swedish only.


http://hd.se/angelholm/2011/08/01/forsokte-bygga-karnreaktor-i/
http://www.sydsvenskan.se/sverige/article1520502/Forsokte-bygga-karnreaktor-i-sin-lagenhet.html
http://www.skanskan.se/article/20110801/NYHETER/110809976/1108/-/tankte-bygga-karnreaktor-i-koket
http://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/ville-bygga-karnreaktor-hemma-i-lagenheten
http://www.gp.se/nyheter/sverige/1.688578-tankte-bygga-karnreaktor-i-koket
http://feber.se/pryl/art/218437/man_frskte_bygga_krnreaktor_i_/
http://www.nsk.se/article/20110801/NYHETER/110809976/1163/-/tankte-bygga-karnreaktor-i-koket
http://svt.se/2.22620/1.2492717/tankte_bygga_karnreaktor_i_koket
http://kvp.expressen.se/nyheter/1.2515723/31-aring-greps-for-bygge-av-karnreaktor-i-koket
http://www.nyheterna.se/1.2224692/2011/08/01/tankte_bygga_karnreaktor_i_koket

Wednesday, I was arrested and sent to jail, when the police and the Swedish Radiation Safety Authory searched my apartment. They took all my radioactive stuff, but I was released after a hearing. But I am still suspekt for crime against the radiation safety law.

I was ordered by the police to get out of the building with my hands up, then three men came, with geiger-counters and searched me. Then I was placed in a police-car, when Radiation Safety Authory went into my apartment with very advanced measure-tools. 

So, my project is canceled!

A meltdown on my cooker!!!

No, it not so dangerous. But I tried to cook Americium, Radium and Beryllium in 96% sulphuric-acid, to easier get them blended. But the whole thing exploded upp in the air…
Of cource I thrown away my pills at the left side, and I didn’t drink the juice-syryp in the right.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0TlECFbjvM

In this video you’ll se exactly how the principe works. It is not me in the video, I don’t know who they are… The first who did this experiment was a boyscout, named David Hahn, also called ”The Nuclear Boyscout” or ”The Radioactive Boyscout”. There are many pages about him:

http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn

Yes, I know… He doesn’t look very great… 

Uranium is the most common fuel in nuclear reactors. Naturaly occuring Uranium consist of about 99,2% U-238 and 0,7% of U-235. It is the U-235 which is intressting. Because it is fissible. Uranium has to be enriched to be used in the most coherences. Under 20% U-235 it is called LEU (Low Enriched Uranium), which is used in the most nucler reactors. HEU stand for High Enriched Uranium, which is used in some atomic-submarines and in nuclear weapons.

But in this project we are not going to use U-235. Naturally Uranium (with 0,7% U-235), can be used directly in heavy water-reactors. But we are going our from U-238, depleted Uranium.

If a neutron is catched up in the U-238 nuclear, it transmute to U-239 with T½ = 22,3 min, which than decays into Pa-239, and the half-life of that is about 27 days. Then the Protactinium decays to the fissible isotope Plutonium-239.

Then the isotope of Uranium, U-233 is fissible, and that is the type we use with the Thorium-project.

Thoriumoxide in a gas lantern mantle.

Thorium is a naturally occuring element, and can be used as fuel in a nuclear breed-reactor. The isotope Th-232 is the most common. It is found as thoriumoxide in gas lantern mantels, or in weld-electrodes, which here in Sweden can be bought at Biltema.

When a neutron, from your neutron-gun hits the Th-232, it turns into Th-233, which decays to Pa-233, and then to U-233. U-233 is fissible.

Another picture at the mantle.

Americium and Radium mixed with Beryllium.

To transmute an atom, for example Th-232 to Th-233, we need some neutrons. It is here the α-emitter come into the picture. To get neutrons, just mix the α-emitter with Aluminum or Beryllium. Beryllium is the best, but it is pretty toxic, and Aluminum is easier to get.

 An ampoule with Beryllium.

Why we need so much α-radiation is because of 1 MBq, there is only about 30 neutrons released (with Beryllium). The neutrons have to slows down with a moderator, which I will write about later. Neutron-radiation is ionizing, and the quality-factor depends on its energy;

< 10 keV = 5

10 keV – 100 keV = 10

100 keV – 2 MeV = 20

2 MeV – 20 MeV = 10

> 20 MeV = 5

As you see, it’s more effective when the energy is in the middle. Neutrons can be hard to control, Because Lead or concrete won’t stop it. But some other materials do, such as Cadmium, Boron, paraffin or graphite.

A neutron-gun. An old medicin-can, with a glass-pipe in the middle. Covered around with Lead.

Radium from clock-fingers.

Radium is much more effective than Americium. Radium was used into around 1950, in clocks and watches, then it was withdrawn because it was too dangerous. The isotope Ra-226, an α-emitter, with a half-life of 1 599 years. It is hightly toxic and decays into Radon.

It was used to paint fingers and faces on the clocks, to get it self-lightning. But there are many clocks still. I bought a lot of clock-fingers on eBay. It’s not so expensive, about $ 12 for 5 pieces.

Americium from smoke-detectors, of course not the whole piece is Americium.

The easiest way to get some radioactive material to start with, is to take apart smoke-detectors. Smoke-detectors is now more replaced with the optical variant, but in the ionizing type there is a small amount of Americium (Am-241), an α-emitter with a half-life of 432 years.

The Americium-piece lie on about 37 kBq, 37 000 bequerel. The background-radiation is on about 35 Bq. But for my project you need much, much more. About 100 of smoke-detectors. But later I will try another material, instead of getting so many smoke-detectors

This glowing keychain is an ampoule filled with Trithium, radioactive Hydrogen. It has nothing to do with the main reactor. But it is funny to know, that Trithium is one of the main component in hydrogen-bombs. Regular Hydrogen (H) nuclear, consists only of a proton, then there are heavy Hydrogen, Deuterium (D), that consists of a proton and a neutron, and there is Trithium (T), which consists of one proton and two neutrons.

It emitts β-radiation and have a T½ of 12,32 years. In fusion-bombs (hydrogen-bombs), Trithium is fusioned with Deuterium, and releases a high amount of energy. Also there is a big research to develope fusion-reactors.

It is always good to have a geiger-counter, a tool to measure ionizing radiation. I have a geiger-counter from Imagesco:

http://www.imagesco.com/geiger/digital-geiger-counter.html

But I think there is something wrong with it, because some times it wouldn’t react on high radiation. So I plan to buy this one, a gamma-scout:

http://www.gammascout.com/
But due the nuclear accident in Fukushima, Japan, the company has gain too many orders, so it would take time to get one.

Once I borrowed a very, very expensive geiger-counter from a hospital. It was very accurate, but it costed about $ 12 000.

Radiation can be measured in many ways. Here is a simple explanation of the different units.

Decaying

Bequerel
One decay per second is 1 Bq, it is the standard unit for decaying.

Curie
Curie is an older unit. 1 Ci is 3,7 x 10^10 Bq, which be equivalent to the decay of 1 gram of Radium.


Exposition

C/Kg
Coulomb per kilo. Coulomb is a measure of electrical charge. 1 coulomb is the charge of by one second passes a conductor with the current of 1 ampere.

Roentgen
Roentgen (R) is an older unit, which be equivalent to 0,000258 C/Kg


Absorbed dose

Gray
1 Gy is one joule per kilo. One joule is equivalent to move one coulomb, one meter with one volt.

Rad
Rad is an older unit, 1 rad is 0,01 Gy.


Equivalent dose

Sievert
1 Sv is absorbed dose (in gray) multiplied with the quality-factor. The qulity factor is, for;
α-radiation = 20
β-radiation = 1
γ-radiation = 1
n-radiation = 5-20 depending on the energy

Rem
Rem is an older unit, 1 rem is equivalent ro 0,01 Sv.