Nuclear power experiment

[coinjunky2]

Hi,

I was hoping that you can give me ideas on how to make a simple "nuclear engine". Like something that can run on low nuclear power, maybe Americium 241 from a smoke detector? Maybe it could be something that generates electricity and powers a small light bulb?

Thanks for any ideas.

[deleted-71254]

Dear Coinjunky2,

I'm reminded of a story that came out some years ago, about a teenager who started expermenting with nuclear technology in his backyard. Over several years he collected enough radiactive materials from consumer products to have his family's household declared unsafe for habitation.

Creating a "nuclear engine" that can produce enough electrical energy to power a small lightbulb is extremely hazardous. The amount of fissionable material would be on the order of several pounds... as to get reactions to occur at a high enough rate to generate sufficient heat one needs to be near the critical mass (search term) of that material.

I highly encourage continued self education in nuclear science and technology, but strongly suggest scaling back your project goals. A reasonable science fair experiement using nuclear reactions might be found in making a working cloud chamber if one is ambitious (I made one as a student... and took second place at the science fair). Or you may build a working geiger counter or other radiation detector.

Although some smoke detectors do have americium, a better source for low level radiation is the thorium found in gas lantern mantles. The ashes from several of them piled together would make a good source for a cloud chamber or radiation detector.

Let us know how it goes. Good Luck.

[PhilipPierce]

Dear Coinjunky2,

Your project sounds very ambitious but as candicebrownelliott2 said, the smoke detector isn't radioactive enough to power anything.

The reason that you cannot use a smoke detector for your experiment is becuase it is not radioactive enough to create any useable heat. A nuclear generator works by surrounding a radioactive material (usually plutonium) with a material that converts the heat into electricity. However, to get enough heat, you would need a much larger source.

You might try to talk to a college or university close by and ask them for help on how to do projects over radiaiton and if you could do it there.

There are many other experiments that would be much safer to conduct.
You could build different radiation detectors as candicebrownelliott2 said such as a cloud chamber, scintillator, geiger counter, ion chamber, and so on.
Or you could experiment with the different properties of radiation, such as shielding, the inverse square law, and radon around the house.

You also might want to try searching the internet for nuclear generator, or experiments with radiation. There are a lot of good sources on the internet but not everything is true so be careful with projects that talk about doing unsafe things with radiation.

Best of luck with your project and please let us know if you need any more help.



Hope this helps,
Philip

[deleted-71395]

The story you're referring to is told in great detail in The Radioactive Boy Scout, which should be available at just about any library or bookstore since it was fairly popular. I read it last year, and it was a decent read. I'd recommend it for ideas as to your project, and perhaps why you shouldn't do that project. As I recall, he used about 150 smoke detectors (which had to have the Cesium carefully refined by him), and was able to get a decent enough sustained reaction to cause the various federal agencies to get involved, arrest him, cause $1 million in toxic cleanup, dig up and dispose of all of the soil in his back yard, and so on.

I'd highly recommend against it!

[bradleyshanrock-solberg]

Something to keep in mind is that nuclear power plants really don't work much different from any other heat-based power plant.

You take a heat source, you boil water with it, the steam spins a turbine which, because rotating a magnetic field creates a current, generates electricity. The basic mechanics haven't changed since the 19th century.

(hydroelectric power, or wind power, by contrast, uses water motion or air motion to spin the turbine directly, without having to boil water and generate steam)

The only reason nuclear power is interesting is because traditionally generating heat typically requires fuel and generates waste products. If you heat the water with coal, you have to dig the coal out of the ground and put up with the pollutants generated by burning it. Nuclear fission (and in theory fusion, but I don't think anyone has made that practical even with 50 years of trying) gets a LOT of heat for very little fuel (waste disposal though, is still a huge challenge, as is safety), and thus is a "cheap" power source.

Generating heat though by just assembling radioactive materials is hideously inefficient - and dangerous. Yes, even without fusion or fission, radioactive materials emit particles which if intercepted can generate heat, but not normally enough to even warm a small glass of water, much less spin a turbine. I'm rather amazed that he managed to get enough to cause even a small sustained reaction. But then I didn't grow up anywhere that Pitchblende ore was available, and it wouldn't have occurred to me to booststrap what he did have with a breeder reactor. That guy was crazy, but very, very bright.

Note that exposure to sufficient quantities of fissionables to create a reaction that generates even enough heat to boil the water in a dixie-cup will probably kill you. This is NOT something to try. I agree with a prior poster - make yourself a proportional counter or geiger counter (the same item really, only difference is the voltage you run through the wire) and use it to test the radioactivity in your area. That's plenty big a project, and is in fact doable for a very ambitious engineer - and is a ton safer than actually gathering fissionables and trying to make them more radioactive.