ScienceHideout
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Macalaster Scientific Corp Radioactive Materials Kit
Hey everyone!
LONG story but I am in charge of getting rid of some hazardous waste. Most of the waste is a couple small acrylic boxes that say Macalaster Scientific
Corp Radioactive Materials Kit. Googling this name I found ONLY the following cached email- no response. The urls are non-existant, and I was
wondering if anyone has heard of this, or could possibly give some insight into finding out what is in it. I need to know in order to tell the
disposal company.
The email reads,
"Radsafers,
Back in May 1997 there were a couple of posts that discussed a "Radioactive Materials Kit." The Kit was described as follows:
Macalaster Scientific Corp.
Radioactive Materials Kit
30145 (a product or catalog number I would presume)
Contents: Six (approximately 1/2 inch clear plastic cube) containers labeled - A, B, C, D, E, F. There is a solid material in each cube. A -
Yellow/Green (radioactive), B - White, C - Yellow (radioactive), D - White, E - White (radioactive), F - Pale Yellow.
Vince Chase responded to the original post with the following information:
". . .Those kits are school demonstration projects meant for advanced high school or college level courses. Macalaster Scientific was bought out by
Raytheon around 1973. If memory serves me, those kits contained uranium and thorium compounds in natural abundance. . ."
A local high school just "gave" our Hazwaste Manager eleven of those kits. Does anybody out there have anything more specific regarding the
compounds found in the those kits.
Any help would be appreciated. . .
Regards,
-Erick Lindstrom"
What Erick describes is exactly the things that I am getting rid of. Keep in mind, though, that his is 14 years after this email was written. If
anyone is familiar enough with radioactive to identify by sight, I can look into taking pictures.
Thanks!
hey, if you are reading this, I can't U2U, but you are always welcome to send me an email!
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elementcollector1
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Yellow(radioactive) could be yellowcake, but apart from that I have no idea.
Elements Collected:52/87
Latest Acquired: Cl
Next in Line: Nd
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ScienceHideout
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I have a suspicion that at least one is yellowcake- I have no idea which one, though. There a a few yellow ones. It would be nice if there are a
couple qualitative tests that could help. How are uranium compounds different from thorium compounds?
hey, if you are reading this, I can't U2U, but you are always welcome to send me an email!
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IrC
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They are not going to be all that hot if intended for schools. Very unlikely to exceed 5 mr/hr as then you have OSHA, NRC and others to deal with. If
your worried about keeping or disposing I'll give you my mailing address. Radioactive R Us is my motto. Low level sources are not a problem to mail
within guidelines. If only a little over pub52 IIRC the pub right just wrap them in lead foil. All they are concerned with is what is coming out of
the package so long as what is inside the package is not so hot new restrictions apply. Just about every radioactive item I have came in the mail
excepting those I gained in my younger years when prospecting was a better weekend that Jet Skis in Mexico (did that too).
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" Richard Feynman
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bfesser
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Pictures would be appreciated.
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dontasker
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Quote: Originally posted by IrC  | They are not going to be all that hot if intended for schools. Very unlikely to exceed 5 mr/hr as then you have OSHA, NRC and others to deal with.
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They shouldn't be that hot, but...
I picked up this exact same thing from my high school when they cut the electronics class (2001, I think). I found it in a box along with a sample of
Co60.
The cobalt is undetectable. The radium makes my counters scream to life. Currently store it in a lead pig.
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IrC
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Unbelievable they would have such materials in a public school. I think that is dangerous. If I taught in High School I would not have anything over 5
mr/hr accessible to students.
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" Richard Feynman
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dontasker
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| Quote: Originally posted by IrC | Unbelievable they would have such materials in a public school. I think that is dangerous. If I taught in High School I would not have anything over 5
mr/hr accessible to students.
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I agree.
The teacher didn't seem to care much. When I took the class he started off by warning us that he didn't care what we did as long as the alligator clip
leads didn't go missing. After receiving blank looks from all of us, he explained how he used to steal them for roach clips.
Back to the main subject,
ScienceHideout, do you have a UV light? I know there are a number of uranium compounds that fluores nicely. I'm not too sure about other radioactive
elements. May help some in identifying what they are.
I did a search for info and came up with the same stuff you provided.
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IrC
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This subject faded away but since you have to get rid of things how about selling me a decently strong Alpha source? Building both photodiode
detectors and ion chambers trying to improve the signal/noise but I lack a decent source. All I have for Alpha is a few dots out of smoke detectors
and the Americium is not nearly strong enough to be very useful.
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" Richard Feynman
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dontasker
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I was surfing around last night and found a gem of a website. http://carlwillis.wordpress.com
What caught my eye was this:
Some more info is here at the bottom of the post.
Hope that helps some.
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neptunium
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look like a perfect job for my new spectrometer !! if the activity is low enough I `ll test them for you!
that paper has it all labeled! sulfates and nitrates are not yellow cake!
send me a small sample if you`d like to know the activity and which one is which
[Edited on 26-9-2013 by neptunium]
[Edited on 26-9-2013 by neptunium]
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ScienceHideout
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Sorry it took me so long to respond- but Dontasker- you are my hero! That is exactly the item in question and because of you I know what everything
is.
Thanks a bunch!
hey, if you are reading this, I can't U2U, but you are always welcome to send me an email!
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dontasker
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| Quote: Originally posted by ScienceHideout | Sorry it took me so long to respond- but Dontasker- you are my hero! That is exactly the item in question and because of you I know what everything
is.
Thanks a bunch! |
Cool. Glad it helped. That'll be $75.00, please. 
Finding that site was its own reward. It was very interesting to browse.
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