 |
| Map of the Nuclear Plant explosions. |
Image via WikipediaBy Randy Economywww.Economy4ABC.Blogspot.com
March 12, 2011
10:13 p.m. PST
Los Angeles, CA
Until four hours ago, I have never heard of this chemical called "Cesium" or "Caesium." But tonight, people all over the world are trying to get as much information on this "bad boy" of chemicals that has been leaked into the atmosphere after the "Great Japan Earthquake" around 36 hours ago.
Don't want to mess with "Cesium." How do you stop this from entering the atmosphere? How harmful is it to people living in the immediate area around the nuclear reactors along the eastern coast of Japan?
I live right down the street from a manufacturing production plant here in Cerritos, CA that was the center of a national debate last year in USA Today, CNN, and other media outlets. Don't mess with Hydrazine as well.
Anyway. Do your research on Cesium. Here is what I found out about it.
Caesium or cesium[note 1] (
/ˈsiːziəm/ SEE-zee-əm) is the chemical element with the symbol Cs and atomic number 55. It is a soft, silvery-gold alkali metal with a melting point of 28 °C (82 °F), which makes it one of only five elemental metals that are liquid at (or near) room temperature.[note 2] Caesium is an alkali metal and has physical and chemical properties similar to those of rubidium and potassium. The metal is extremely reactive and pyrophoric, reacting with water even at −116 °C (−177 °F). It is the least electronegative element that has stable isotopes, of which it has only one, caesium-133. Caesium is mined mostly from pollucite, while the radioisotopes, especially caesium-137, are extracted from waste produced by nuclear reactors.
Image via WikipediaTwo German chemists, Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff, (Gustav is seen here on my blog) discovered caesium in 1860 by the newly developed method of flame spectroscopy. The first small-scale applications for caesium have been as a "getter" in vacuum tubes and in photoelectric cells. In 1967, a specific frequency from the emission spectrum of caesium-133 was chosen to be used in the definition of the second by the International System of Units. Since then, caesium has been widely used in atomic clocks.Since the 1990s, the largest application of the element has been as caesium formate for drilling fluids. It has a range of applications in the production of electricity, in electronics, and in chemistry. The radioactive isotope caesium-137 has a half-life of about 30 years and is used in medical applications, industrial gauges, and hydrology. Although the element is only mildly toxic, it is a hazardous material as a metal and its radioisotopes present a high health risk in case of radiation leaks.
Nuclear and isotope applications
Caesium-137 is a very common radioisotope used as a gamma-emitter in industrial applications. Its advantages include a half-life of roughly 30 years, its availability from the nuclear fuel cycle, and having 137Ba as stable end product. The high water solubility is a disadvantage which makes it incompatible with irradiation of food and medical supplies.[76] It has been used in agriculture, cancer treatment, and the sterilization of food, sewage sludge, and surgical equipment.[6][77] Radioactive isotopes of caesium in radiation devices were used in the medical field to treat certain types of cancer,[78] but emergence of better alternatives and the use of water-soluble caesium chloride in the sources, which could create wide-ranging contamination, gradually put some of these caesium sources out of use.[79][80] Caesium-137 has been employed in a variety of industrial measurement gauges, including moisture, density, leveling, and thickness gauges.[81] It has also been used in well logging devices for measuring the electron density of the rock formations, which is analogous to the bulk density of the formations.[82]Isotope 137 has also been used in hydrologic studies analogous to those using tritium. It is produced from detonation of nuclear weapons and emissions from nuclear power plants. With the commencement of nuclear testing around 1945, and continuing through the mid-1980s, caesium-137 was released into the atmosphere where it is absorbed readily into solution. Known year-to-year variation within that period allows correlation with soil and sediment layers. Caesium-134, and to a lesser extent caesium-135, have also been used in hydrology as a measure of caesium output by the nuclear power industry. While they are less prevalent than either caesium-133 or caesium-137, these isotopes have the advantage of being produced solely from anthropogenic sources.[83]
