Abd, I assume you're aware of the hazards of working with this stuff? That being said, its melting point is not absurdly high - under 2400F. Could you melt some under, say, an N2 or argon atmosphere, on perhaps a ceramic surface, so that it spread out into a thin layer, and then cool it?
Jeff On Fri, Dec 7, 2012 at 8:35 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <[email protected]>wrote: > At 05:02 PM 12/6/2012, Jed Rothwell wrote: > >> Yes, a more powerful reaction would be nice, but we must work with what >> we have, as Abd stresses. We will die of old age if we sit around waiting >> UPS to deliver a $1.5 million package of unobtainium. >> > > It's coming? And the reward of patience is ... patience. > > Actually, I asked for $1.5 million so I could *attempt to obtain* this > crucial material. That would include my overhead, travel expenses, etc. You > don't think it's easy to buy unobtainium, do you? > > If we actually find some, we might need to go back for more funding to > actually purchase it. > > However, the bright side: unobtainium is expected to be simply a catalyst. > So it will not be destroyed in the experiments, and we could resell it. > Given how much work it will have taken to find the material, we could > probably break it down into smaller pieces and resell them to recover the > funding, with the profit from resale covering the initial outlay. > > Actually, seriously, I just bought a bit over 5 grams of beryllium metal, > 99.9% pure,on eBay for $37. What I really wanted was a very small piece of > beryllium foil, but was I patient? No.... > > Did I ask if someone had a small piece they could spare? No.... > > I found how insanely expensive beryllium foil was and assumed that > beryllium itself must be so as well. No, I paid a reasonable price, it > turns out, for 5 grams. However, what I really want is a tiny piece that I > can fit in the well of an Am-241 ionization source from a smoke detector, > because the conversion rate for alphas to neutrons by Be-9 is very low, and > so getting the beryllium as close as possible to the alpha source is > desirable. In commercial Am-Be neutron sources, they actually blend the Be > and Am oxide. And they use a thousand times as much Am-241, i.e., one > mCurie, instead of the 0.9 uCurie in a smoke detector source. > > (My goal is to test LR-115 SSNTD material for neutron detection. I had the > naive idea that I might be able to bash the Beryllium metal with a hammer > to make a thin foil, then cut a piece. Maybe. Probably not a great idea. > Beryllium is very hard, it might shatter. I don't want to use machining or > cutting techniques that would create small fragments, turning my apartment > or basement into a hazardous waste area. I may try using this little ingot > directly, and maybe the Be itself will multiply the neutrons a bit. But any > ideas?) >
