Polonium health hazards

One of the earliest reported uses was for the improvement of the cold starting properties of internal combustion engines, the polonium being incorporated into the sparking plug electrode alloy (38), but its effectiveness for this purpose has been disputed (40) and a health hazard would certainly arise from the burning off of the polonium from the electrode and its discharge into the air. 

Alpha emitters such as polonium-210 and curium-242 are used to excite emission of low-energy x-rays. They offer the advantage of large signal-to-background ratio, but the thickness of sample analyzed is extremely small. The alpha emitters are health hazards and generally have very limited application in energy-dispersion analysis. 

The interplay between the chemical and nuclear properties of radon makes it a health hazard. Because radon is a noble gas, it is extremely unreactive and is therefore free to escape from the ground without chemically reacting along the way. It is readily inhaled and exhaled with no direct chemical effects. Its half-life, however, is only 3.82 clan s. It decays, by losing an alpha particle, into a radioisotope of polonium ... 

In some instances, the source of radon is in wastes from uranium mining or phosphate production. In most cases, it is emitted by the radioactive decay of present in small amounts in rocks and soils. Because radon is a gas, it readily passes through air passages in the body and is breathed in and out. The product formed when a Rn atom gives up an a particle is the isotope polonium-218, which also emits a particles. Unlike radon, polonium is a solid. Health hazards posed by radon seem to be from Po and other radioactive decay products becoming attached to dust particles in the air and then being breathed into the lungs. 

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