Hi
I expect you will be working with depleted uranium dU unless you are working
in a DOD establishment. These samples will be mostly u238 which is an alpha
emitter with a half life of 4x10^9 years. Most of this radiation will be
caught by the tube. However, there will be other decay products in your
material and these will be gamma or beta emitters with shorter half lives so
if you hold a geiger counter upto the tube it will count above background.
While contained in the tube the samples should be reasonably safe and even
if spilled shouldn’t be that dangerous, however, your local health
and safety requirements and cleanup may vary… You may want to ensure
the samples are handled above non absorbent surfaces [I used plastic trays
in my phd many years ago].
The biggest problems with these sort of samples are insoluble compounds as
if these get into the lungs they can cause problems as they will lodge and
irradiate a small area of tissue, soluble compound are more likely to be u
dispersed and excreted though uranium is a heavy metal poison as well!
Another thing to consider is Bruker may well very picky about maintaining a
probe that has had a broken uranium sample in it, you will need to show you
have decontaminated the probe effectively, I would suggest a good wash with
a slightly acid solution of a chelator such as EDTA if you have to, though
check with Bruker first!. Uranium (actually the uranium VI uranyl ion) is
very soluble at acid pHs but in a similar way to transition metals and actinides
and without chelators isn’t soluble much above pH 4.
One other tip is the uranyl ion fluoresces yellow very nicely under uv light
and I often found a UV light much better at finding tiny spills or flecks of
U(VI) salts rather than a geiger detector because dU is so weakly radioactive.
I hope that helps
Regards
Gary
Dr Gary S Thompson NMR Facility Manager
CCPN CoI & Working Group Member
Wellcome Trust Biomolecular NMR Facility
School of Biosciences, Division of Natural Sciences
University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, England, CT2 7NZ
☎:01227 82 7117
✉️: g.s.thompson_at_kent.ac.uk
orchid: orcid.org/0000-0001-9399-7636
On 5 Nov 2024, at 17:29, Kenneth Sharp-Knott <kknott_at_vt.edu> wrote:
Hi Everyone,
I've had a request to perform 1H and 13C NMR on Uranium (VI) containing
complexes. The question is if it is safe or a hazard to the instrument.
I've been provided papers where it is done in relatively standard NMR setups,
and no mention is made of the fact that Uranium is present in the experimental
NMR section.
Does anyone have experience with this?
Best
Ken Sharp-Knott
Manager of Analytical Services and the NMR Facility
Department of Chemistry
Virginia Tech
(540)267-6502 (Cell)
(540)231-0885 (Office)
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Received on Wed Nov 06 2024 - 02:30:41 MST