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1978•Transactions of the Royal Society of South AfricaRequires access

THE HALF-LIFE OF POLONIUM-216

J D Hey, R.D. Cherry

Open publisher page 4 citations

Abstract

Summary A homogeneous blood-thorium sulphate mixture has been used as a source of polonium-216 alpha-particle activity in two determinations of the half-life of this nuclide. The first method consisted of scintillation counting, by means of a scaler and six electro-mechanical registers, of the alpha-particle pairs produced by the decay of polonium-216 subsequent to that of its precursor, thoron-220. A more accurate result was provided by pulse-counting with a multi-channel analyser. Results are compared with those of three earlier experiments. The weighted mean of our two values for the half-life of polonium-216 (0,155 plusmn 0,004 seconds) is in better agreement with the result of Ward (1942) than with the determination by Diamond & Gindler (1963).

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Summary A homogeneous blood-thorium sulphate mixture has been used as a source of polonium-216 alpha-particle activity in two determinations of the half-life of this nuclide. The first method consisted of scintillation counting, by means of a scaler and six electro-mechanical registers, of the alpha-particle pairs produced by the decay of polonium-216 subsequent to that of its precursor, thoron-220. A more accurate result was provided by pulse-counting with a multi-channel analyser. Results are compared with those of three earlier experiments. The weighted mean of our two values for the half-life of polonium-216 (0,155 plusmn 0,004 seconds) is in better agreement with the result of Ward (1942) than with the determination by Diamond & Gindler (1963).

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Available abstract

Summary A homogeneous blood-thorium sulphate mixture has been used as a source of polonium-216 alpha-particle activity in two determinations of the half-life of this nuclide. The first method consisted of scintillation counting, by means of a scaler and six electro-mechanical registers, of the alpha-particle pairs produced by the decay of polonium-216 subsequent to that of its precursor, thoron-220. A more accurate result was provided by pulse-counting with a multi-channel analyser. Results are compared with those of three earlier experiments. The weighted mean of our two values for the half-life of polonium-216 (0,155 plusmn 0,004 seconds) is in better agreement with the result of Ward (1942) than with the determination by Diamond & Gindler (1963).

Key concepts: Polonium, Nuclide, Thorium, Analyser, Alpha particle, Radiochemistry, Homogeneous, Half-life

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