A large amount of the extremely expensive metal americium was found during a secret operation of the District Prosecutor's Office in Plovdiv, the Ministry of the Interior and the state agency "National Security" ;.
Ludmila Simeonova, head of the “Emergency Planning and Preparedness“ at the Nuclear Regulatory Agency, told bTV that the element americium is an artificially created chemical element, it has radioactive isotope units 241, and the main radioactive radiation is alpha radiation.
According to Simeonova, the material has very weak gamma radiation.
„It is widely used in industry, in medicine, in various control instruments, even in smoke detectors. When handled the right way, it is not dangerous. Radioactive radiation is alpha radiation that is absorbed in two to three centimeters of air. You can protect yourself from it by placing a piece of paper between you and the source of the radiation. The characteristic is that it is dangerous if swallowed or inhaled, explained Simeonova.
According to the expert, the element should be stored in containers. It is important that the packaging is hermetically sealed to prevent people from inhaling and getting the radioactive chemical element into the body.
Simeonova added that if americium gets into the body, it can stay for quite a long time, because it is very difficult to separate it, and this makes it dangerous. The most important thing for people who work with the element is to protect the nose, mouth and eyes so that it does not get inside the body. Only specialists should work with it.
They must have a mask to protect the respiratory organs, goggles and protective clothing. They are then checked for contamination and, if contaminated, re-consigned to the radioactive waste repository. If they are not contaminated, they can be used accordingly, Ludmila Simeonova explained.
All such radioactive materials and isotopes must first be tested. Once it is established what exactly they are, they will be temporarily stored in the repository for radioactive waste in Novi Khan.
Americium is a hard metal with a silver-white color and white luster, malleable and spheroidal. It glows in the dark and is quite malleable. It melts at 1175 degrees Celsius. It darkens slowly in dry air at room temperature.
This element can be used to make a nuclear weapon, although it is difficult to produce and requires the presence of plutonium.
The critical mass of the metal is about 60 kg and is much higher than that of plutonium and uranium isotopes, and therefore not a very good choice for use in a nuclear device.
After its isolation by Seaborg and his colleagues in 1944, americium turned out to be quite an important element.
The information about his discovery was presented the same year at a meeting of the American Chemical Society. Previously, during the war, the elements plutonium and neptunium were discovered.
According to experts, americium has various applications, such as a source of neutrons, in alpha-ionizing radiation, for gamma transmission properties, as a potential fuel for spacecraft, in finding oil wells, determining soil density and moisture content , measuring the moisture content of coke and concrete, in the activation analysis of various materials, as well as for testing neutron counters.