Re: taking apart smoke detectors

[Dan Burns <kilroi@LGHS.NET>]

Another concern with removing material from smoke detectors and using it in class
is that students will then learn this is possible. There was an incident where a
high school student collected defective detectors by the dozen and removed and
concentrated the Americium. He did the same thing with lantern mantles and Thorium
and tried to make a reactor. This resulted in quite a radioactive cleanup problem.
I would avoid doing this in high school for this reason.

Dan Burns
Los Gatos High School

Tim Sullivan x5830 wrote:

> I removed the alpha source from a smoke detector. The source itself is on a
> gold colored metal foil attached to a sheet metal bracket that turned out to be
> handy for handling. It was useful as an energy calibration point in an alpha
> spectrometer.
>
> I am not an expert, but as I understand it the material is firmly attached to
> the foil and does not come off easily. However, I would still avoid touching
> the foil and teach students to treat it with some respect.
>
> Tim Sullivan
> sullivan@kenyon.edu