Radioactive Isotopes of Copper 578 (1936)
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1110 NATURE jUNE 26, 1937 axis, no water is being frozen or melted with change 10h.l,5.8• Madsen has directed attention to the in temperature. When the curve is vertical with confusion over these periods and gives the half-life respect to the temperature axis, pure water is being period of the copper obtained from zinc as 17h!. frozen or melted. When the curve is inclined to the Leo Szilard, of the Clarendon Laboratory, Oxford, temperature axis, ice is being separated from or informed us that the decay curve of the copper melted into a solution, as in the concentration or bombarded by fast neutrons from radon-beryllium dilution of a sugar solution. This latter effect may contained a period of a few hours which was absent also be brought about by capillary forces or by col when slow neutrons were used, or if the radioactive loidal substances the avidity of which for water copper was obtained from zinc by fast neutron varies with their concentration. bombardment. It was arranged with him that Fig. 3 shows the results obtained upon freezing further investigations and chemical separation should fresh green peas using time as a variable instead of be made in this laboratory. temperature. 19 gm. of green peas at room tempera We irradiated 2 gm. mols of pure cupric oxide with ture were placed in the condenser and immersed in a fast neutrons from a 200 me. radium-beryllium thermostat held at -16° C. At the time of immersion source. After irradiation, we dissolved the oxide, and at intervals thereafter capacitance measurements added 500 mgm. of nickel salt and precipitated the were made. The time required for complete freezing copper as cuprous iodide. The separated nickel after is the time elapsed before the capacitance reaches a purification and conversion to nickel sulphide, constant value. The curves shown are for mature showed an activity of 80 impulses/min., I} hours and immature peas taken from the same lot. Since after irradiation had ceased, decaying with a half the condenser containing the peas was surrounded life of 160 ± 10 min. We fmmd the same half-life by an air jacket, it is possible that the rate of heat period in nickel irradiated by slow neutrons, in agree transfer was the limiting factor in the earlier part of ment with Rotblat, Naidu and Heyn9 • It must be the freezing time. The method offers the opportunity due to a radioactive isotope or and may of determining when such substances are completely be produced either from ;;cu or by capture of frozen throughout. It should be noted that the peas a neutron and expulsion of a proton. with the higher moisture content showed a greater We found that copper irradiated with slow neutrons capacitance change upon freezing. Possibly with in the absence of fast neutrons showed an activity of improved technique, quantitative interpretation of half-life 13±0·5h. and that the same half-life period the relation between capacitance change and the was obtained by separating radioactive copper from amount of ice formed may be made. zinc bombarded by fast neutrons. In these experi This method is being presented here in the hope ments the initial activities were about 300 impulses/ that it may prove useful in fields outside those with min. with a background of 20 impulses/min. which we are concerned. The data presented in this This radioactive copper may well be identical with paper were obtained with the first apparatus built that produced by bombarding copper by deuterons and are to be regarded only as representative of the and is accordingly likely to be The 6 min. type of results obtainable. The functions of the period of copper obtained by slow neutron capture laboratory do not permit the following up of this would then be due to problem from any except the soil point of view. It No indication of a 6h., 10h. or 17h. period was seems very probable that the method would be obtained in our experiments. useful in studying the winter hardiness of plants, the Thanks are due to the Department of Scientific freezing injury to fruits and vegetables, and storage and Industrial Research for a grant and to Imperial temperature for meats. It may also be useful in Chemical Industries, Ltd., for the purchase of preparation of frozen-pack foods. apparatus. LYLE T. ALEXANDER. ERWIN A. OESER. THOMAS M. SHAW. Department of Chemistry, JAMES L. TUCK. University, Manchester. U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1 Amaldi, E., Fermi, E., and others, Proc. Roy. Soc., A, 146, 483 Bureau of Chemistry and Soils, (1934) ; A, 149, 522 (1935). Washington. 'Lawrence, Ernest 0., and others, Phys. Rev., 46, 325 (193!); April 13. 48, 493 (1935). • Heyn, A. F., Physica, 4, 160 (1937). 1 Alexander, L. T., Shaw, T. M., and Muckenhirn, R. J., Proc. Soil 'Bothe, W., and Gentner, W., Naturwiss., 25, 30 (1937). Sci. Soc. America,1, 1937 (presented before the meeting of the American 'Bjerge, T., and Westcott, C. H., NATURE, 134, 286 (19H). Soeiety of Agronomy, Nov. 1936). • Van Voorhis, S. N., Phys. Rev. , 49, 876 (1936); 50 , 895 (1936). 1 Madsen, C. B., NATURE, 138, 722 (19:36). • Livingood, J. J., Phys. Rev., 50, 425 (1937). 'Rotb!at, J., NATURE, 136, 515 (1935). Naidu, R., NATURE, 137, Radioactive Isotopes of Copper 578 (1936). IN view of the fact that copper has only two stable isotopes and it is difficult to account for Artificial Radioactivity produced by Fast Neutrons the large number of different half-life periods reported and their Inelastic Collisions for radioactive copper isotopes. Of the two short periods of 6 min. and 10·5 min., the latter has been SEVERAL investigators have reported that fast satisfactorily attributed to Periods of 6h. neutrons give rise to a transformation of an irradiated and 10h. have been obtained by neutron bombard element in which the newly formed nucleus results ment1.5 and a 12·8h. period given by deuteron bom from the original nucleus through the loss of a 1 2 bardment-.•. Since this latter product emits both neutron • • positrons and electrons, there is good evidence for I have made some experiments on the activation labelling it A radioactive copper has been of copper, zinc and silver by fast neutrons. As the chemically separated from zinc bombarded by fast efficiency in these cases is small, I used the following neutrons, of half-life variously reported at 6h. and arrangement : A foil of the metal under investigation, © 1937 Nature Publishing Group.