Polonium from uranium ore (part 2) - practical nuclear chemistry

In the video, I showed you how I optimized our university internship experiment for the preparation of an open polonium sample.

ScienceDirect Paper (source for the protocol):

Original by Curie (does not need to be cited in the protocol, but would be nice):

0:00 Previously
0:36 Experiment No. 2
1:41 Overview of Theory
1:59 Results of Systematic Investigation
4:49 Most Efficient Procedure
5:14 Sources of Error
5:45 Analysis for the Report
9:09 Outlook
9:35 Goodbye :)

#polonium #curie #nuclear #chemistry

[johnnysun]

Wow I just found this channel. A lot of videos to go through.

[mewtwoinchernobyl]

I see Curie, I immediately like. Curie is the GOAT.

[iACJ-]

My friend has this Material! I didn't know it is so precious!

[liamheath]

This is so cool! I think im gonna be on some kind of list after watching it tho 😃

[mustangna]

Hello, the mystery dark layer with high probability is platinum group metals and gold deposited on the surface of the silver sheet.

[Neptunium]

how much of the uranium mineral "really" dissolved in the HCl solution ? would you say it`s fair to say there may be other isotopes on that "mystery layer" (5:44)? did the napkin removed "some" Po? probably not a lot though, Since it is likely there is a lot more than Po on the black layer, an unknown amount of Po could be buried in it and never produce a signal .. just rambling ! good video! Thanks

[jansenart]

You may or may not want to make these University of Cologne videos unlisted? I'm glad they aren't though.

[MarioRodriguez-owrl]

I mentioned you in a previous video that identifying the mineral composition is key for standard potentials, yield of reaction, etc. One way of knowing it is asking from which mine these ores were extracted and checking in mindat which minerals are present in that mine. But I think we can guess something from the chemical reaction. Silver is tarnishing in this reaction so the anion of the mysterious mineral is reacting with silver producing a insoluble salt, so it's not nitrate. It's not a carbonate either, as strong acidic solutions bubble CO2 away. Silver halides and sulphate are white, so they are not either. But silver phosphate is an insoluble brown salt. So it could be an uranium phosphate. If that's true, the redox potential should be calculated with the formation of silver phosphate. Another option would be it's actually silver chloride and the dark colour is due to polonium doping. In any case it's of key importance knowing the chemical composition of the uranium ore and knowing which one gives better yield for polonium deposition.

[juangarcia-ncur]

question! what does "Bq" mean?
used in yield graphics

[christopherleubner]

A better way to get the polonium out would be to ball mill uranium ore with charcoal then heat it in a high temperature retort. Have some silver foil in a tube that is cooled in the retort condensing tube. Polonium mercury arsnic and other volitile elements will stick.. For fun you can also measure the radon released during the process as well. If you like you can also recover the radium as well with dilute hydrochloric acid followed by cold vacuum filtering, reducing the volume, adding dilute surfuric acid and spinning it in a microcentrifuge.❤