The Uses of Polonium

Polonium has also found some use in industry alpha particle transmission gauges, in which the energy loss of the alpha particle is an index of the thickness of the absorbing material, have been used in paper research and its use in static eliminators has also been reported. These, however, can be very dangerous if the sealing of the radioactive material is inadequate (24, 125). 

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. 

The basic salts of quadrivalent polonium, such as the sulfate and sele-nate, show a marked resemblance to those of tellurium and further resemblances appear in the quadrivalent halides, particularly in their complexing with halide ions in solution, while complexing of polonium(IV) with weak acids, such as acetic, oxalic and tartaric, seems to be more marked than is the case with tellurium. 

In the past 15 years a large number of polonium compounds have been prepared in visible quantities for the first time and as a result of these investigations it has been shown that polonium behaves chemically very much as would be expected from its position in the Periodic Table, with the inert-pair effect, likely to be more marked in polonium than in tellurium, still little in evidence. 

Bagnall, K. W., Proc. 1st Intern. Conf. on Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, Geneva, 1055 7, 380 (1950). 

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The figure of 17 lbs (7.7 kg) looks on the large side for the mass of plutonium — the amount used was probably nearer to around 4.5 kg or just under 10 lb, albeit in a somewhat modified design from the one drawn here. Inside the plutonium core is the initiator, which was intended to flood the plutonium with neutrons at the moment of implosion. This particular design of initiator, called the urchin in the original Fat Man design, had several drawbacks, all associated with the use of polonium 210. 

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