.jpg) A sealed caesium-137radioactive source | |
| General | |
|---|---|
| Symbol | 137Cs |
| Names | caesium-137, 137Cs, Cs-137 |
| Protons(Z) | 55 |
| Neutrons(N) | 82 |
| Nuclide data | |
| Natural abundance | 0 (trace) |
| Half-life(t1/2) | 30.04±0.04 years[1] |
| Isotope mass | 136.907Da |
| Spin | 7⁄2+ |
| Parent isotopes | 137Xe (β−) |
| Decay products | 137mBa 137Ba |
| Decay modes | |
| Decay mode | Decay energy (MeV) |
| β- (beta decay) | 0.5120[2] |
| γ (gamma-rays) | 0.6617 |
| Isotopes of caesium Complete table of nuclides | |
Caesium-137 (137
55Cs
),cesium-137 (US),[7] orradiocaesium, is aradioactiveisotope of caesium that is formed as one of the more commonfission products by thenuclear fission ofuranium-235 and otherfissionableisotopes innuclear reactors andnuclear weapons. Trace quantities also originate fromspontaneous fission ofuranium-238. It is among the most problematic of the short-to-medium-lifetime fission products. Caesium-137 has a relatively lowboiling point of 671 °C (1,240 °F) and easily becomes volatile when released suddenly at high temperature, as in the case of theChernobyl nuclear accident and withatomic explosions, and can travel very long distances in the air. After being deposited onto the soil asradioactive fallout, it moves and spreads easily in the environment because of the high water solubility ofcaesium's most commonchemical compounds, which aresalts. Caesium-137 was discovered byGlenn T. Seaborg andMargaret Melhase.
Caesium-137 has ahalf-life of about 30.04 years.[1]About 94.6%decays bybeta emission to ametastablenuclear isomer of barium:barium-137m (137mBa, Ba-137m). The remainder directly populates the ground state of137Ba, which is stable. Barium-137m has a half-life of about 153 seconds, and is responsible for all of thegamma ray emissions in samples of137Cs. Barium-137m decays to the ground state by emission ofphotons having energy 0.6617 MeV.[8] A total of 85.1% of137Cs decay generates gamma ray emission in this manner. One gram of137Cs has anactivity of 3.215 terabecquerel (TBq).[9]
Caesium-137 has a number of practical uses. In small amounts, it is used to calibrate radiation-detection equipment.[10] In medicine, it is used inradiation therapy.[10] In industry, it is used inflow meters, thickness gauges,[10] moisture-density gauges (for density readings, withamericium-241/beryllium providing the moisture reading),[11] and inborehole logging devices.[12]
Caesium-137 is not widely used forindustrial radiography because it is hard to obtain a very high specific activity material with a well defined (and small) shape as caesium from used nuclear fuel contains stable caesium-133 and also long-livedcaesium-135.Isotope separation is too costly compared to cheaper alternatives. Also the higher specific activity caesium sources tend to be made from very solublecaesium chloride (CsCl), as a result if a radiography source was damaged it would increase the spread of the contamination. It is possible to make water insoluble caesium sources (with variousferrocyanide compounds such asNi
2Fe(CN)
6, and ammonium ferric hexacyano ferrate (AFCF), Giese salt, ferric ammonium ferrocyanide but their specific activity will be much lower. Other chemically inert caesium compounds include caesium-aluminosilicate-glasses akin to the natural mineralpollucite. The latter has been used in demonstration of chemically stable water-insoluble forms of nuclear waste for disposal indeep geological repositories. A large emitting volume will harm the image quality in radiography. The isotopes192
Ir and60
Co are preferred for radiography, since iridium and cobalt are chemically non-reactive metals and can be obtained with much higher specific activities by the activation of stable191
Ir and59
Co inhigh flux reactors. However, while137
Cs is a waste product produced in great quantities in nuclear fission reactors,192
Ir and60
Co are specifically produced in commercial andresearch reactors and their life cycle entails the destruction of the involved high-value elements. Cobalt-60 decays to stablenickel, whereas iridium-192 can decay to either stable osmium or platinum. Due to the residual radioactivity and legal hurdles, the resulting material is not commonly recovered even from "spent" radioactive sources, meaning in essence that the entire mass is "lost" for non-radioactive uses.
As an almost purelysynthetic isotope, caesium-137 has been used to date wine and detect counterfeits[13] and as a relative-dating material for assessing the age of sedimentation occurring after 1945.[14]
Caesium-137 is also used as a radioactive tracer in geologic research to measure soil erosion and deposition; its affinity for fine sediments is useful in this application.[15]
Caesium-137 reacts with water, producing a water-soluble compound (caesium hydroxide). The biological behaviour of caesium is similar to that ofpotassium[16] andrubidium. After entering the body, caesium gets more or less uniformly distributed throughout the body, with the highest concentrations insoft tissue.[17]: 114 However, unlikegroup 2 radionuclides likeradium andstrontium-90, caesium does notbioaccumulate and is excreted relatively quickly. Thebiological half-life of caesium is about 70 days.[18]
A 1961 experiment showed that mice dosed with 21.5 μCi/g had a 50% fatality within 30 days (implying anLD50 of 245 μg/kg).[19] A similar experiment in 1972 showed that when dogs are subjected to awhole body burden of 3800 μCi/kg (140 MBq/kg, or approximately 44 μg/kg) of caesium-137 (and 950 to 1400rads), they die within 33 days, while animals with half of that burden all survived for a year.[20]
Important researches have shown a remarkable concentration of137Cs in the exocrine cells of the pancreas, which are those most affected by cancer.[21][22][23] In 2003, in autopsies performed on 6 children who died in the polluted area near Chernobyl (of reasons not directly linked to theChernobyl disaster; mostly sepsis), where they also reported a higher incidence of pancreatic tumors, Bandazhevsky found a concentration of137Cs 3.9 times higher than in their livers (1359 vs 347 Bq/kg, equivalent to 36 and 9.3nCi/kg in these organs, 600 Bq/kg = 16nCi/kg in the body according to measurements), thus demonstrating that pancreatic tissue is a strong accumulator and secretor in the intestine of radioactive cesium.[24]Accidental ingestion of caesium-137 can be treated withPrussian blue (FeIII
4[FeII
(CN)
6]
3), which binds to it chemically and reduces the biological half-life to 30 days.[25]
| t½ (year) | Yield (%) | Q (keV) | βγ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 155Eu | 4.76 | 0.0803 | 252 | βγ |
| 85Kr | 10.76 | 0.2180 | 687 | βγ |
| 113mCd | 14.1 | 0.0008 | 316 | β |
| 90Sr | 28.9 | 4.505 | 2826 | β |
| 137Cs | 30.23 | 6.337 | 1176 | βγ |
| 121mSn | 43.9 | 0.00005 | 390 | βγ |
| 151Sm | 94.6 | 0.5314 | 77 | β |
Caesium-137, along with other radioactive isotopescaesium-134,iodine-131,xenon-133, andstrontium-90, were released into the environment during nearly allnuclear weapon tests and somenuclear accidents, most notably theChernobyl disaster and theFukushima Daiichi disaster.
Caesium-137 in the environment is substantiallyanthropogenic (human-made). Caesium-137 is produced from the nuclear fission ofplutonium anduranium, and decays intobarium-137.[26] By observing the characteristic gamma rays emitted by this isotope, one can determine whether the contents of a given sealed container were made before or after the firstatomic bomb explosion (Trinity test, 16 July 1945), which spread some of it into the atmosphere, quickly distributing trace amounts of it around the globe. This procedure has been used by researchers to check the authenticity of certain rare wines, most notably the purported "Jefferson bottles".[27] Surface soils and sediments are also dated by measuring the activity of137Cs.
Bombs in the arctic area ofNovaja Zemlja and bombs detonated in or near thestratosphere released cesium-137 that landed in upperLapland, Finland. Measurements of cesium-137 in 1960's was reportedly 45,000 becquerels. Figures from 2011 have a mid range of about 1,100 becquerels, but strangely, cancer cases are no more common there than elsewhere.[28][29][30]
As of today and for the next few hundred years or so, caesium-137 andstrontium-90 continue to be the principal source of radiation in thezone of alienation around theChernobyl nuclear power plant, and pose the greatest risk to health, owing to their approximately 30 year half-life and biological uptake. The mean contamination of caesium-137 in Germany following the Chernobyl disaster was 2000 to 4000 Bq/m2.[citation needed] This corresponds to a contamination of 1 mg/km2 of caesium-137, totaling about 500 grams deposited over all of Germany. In Scandinavia, some reindeer and sheep exceeded the Norwegian legal limit (3000 Bq/kg) 26 years after Chernobyl.[31] As of 2016, the Chernobyl caesium-137 has decayed by half, but could have been locally concentrated by much larger factors.
In April 2011, elevated levels of caesium-137 were also being found in the environment after theFukushima Daiichi nuclear disasters in Japan. In July 2011, meat from 11 cows shipped to Tokyo fromFukushima Prefecture was found to have 1,530 to 3,200 becquerels per kilogram of137Cs, considerably exceeding the Japanese legal limit of 500 becquerels per kilogram at that time.[32] In March 2013, a fish caught near the plant had a record 740,000 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive caesium, above the 100 becquerels per kilogram government limit.[33] A 2013 paper inScientific Reports found that for a forest site 50 km from the stricken plant,137Cs concentrations were high in leaf litter, fungi anddetritivores, but low in herbivores.[34] By the end of 2014, "Fukushima-derived radiocaesium had spread into the whole western North Pacific Ocean", transported by theNorth Pacific current from Japan to theGulf of Alaska. It has been measured in the surface layer down to 200 meters and south of the current area down to 400 meters.[35]
Cesium-137 is reported to be the major health concern in Fukushima. A number of techniques are being considered that will be able to strip out 80% to 95% of the caesium from contaminated soil and other materials efficiently and without destroying the organic material in the soil. These include hydrothermal blasting. The caesium precipitated with ferricferrocyanide (Prussian blue) would be the only waste requiring special burial sites.[36] The aim is to get annual exposure from the contaminated environment down to 1 mSv above background. The most contaminated area where radiation doses are greater than 50 mSv/year must remain off limits, but some areas that are currently less than 5 mSv/year may be decontaminated, allowing 22,000 residents to return.[citation needed]
Caesium-137 gamma sources have been involved in several radiological accidents and incidents.
In theGoiânia accident of 1987, an improperly disposed of radiation therapy system from an abandoned clinic inGoiânia, Brazil, was removed, then cracked to be sold in junkyards. The glowingcaesium salt was then to be sold to curious, unadvised buyers.[37] This led to four confirmed deaths and several serious injuries from radiation contamination.[38][39]
TheKramatorsk radiological accident happened in 1989 when a small capsule 8x4 mm in size of caesium-137 was found inside the concrete wall of an apartment building inKramatorsk,Ukrainian SSR. It is believed that the capsule, originally a part of a measurement device, was lost in the late 1970s and ended up mixed with gravel used to construct the building in 1980. Over 9 years, two families had lived in the apartment. By the time the capsule was discovered, 6 residents of the building had died, 4 fromleukemia and 17 more receiving varying doses of radiation.[40]
The1994 Tammiku incident involved the theft ofradioactive material from a nuclear waste storage facility inMänniku,Saku Parish,Harju County,Estonia. Three brothers, unaware of the facility's nature, broke into a shed while scavenging for scrap metal. One of the brothers received a 4,000 rad whole-body dose from a caesium-137 source that had been released from a damaged container, succumbing to radiation poisoning 12 days later.[citation needed]
In 1997, severalGeorgian soldiers suffered radiation poisoning and burns. They were eventually traced back to training sources left abandoned, forgotten, and unlabeled after thedissolution of the Soviet Union. One was a caesium-137 pellet in a pocket of a shared jacket that released about 130,000 times the level of background radiation at 1 meter distance.[41]
In theAcerinox accident of 1998, the Spanish recycling companyAcerinox accidentally melted down a mass of radioactive caesium-137 that came from agamma-ray generator.[42]
In 2009, a Chinese cement company (inTongchuan,Shaanxi Province) was demolishing an old, unusedcement plant and did not follow standards for handling radioactive materials. This caused some caesium-137 from a measuring instrument to be included with eight truckloads ofscrap metal on its way to asteel mill, where the radioactive caesium was melted down into the steel.[43]
In March 2015, the NorwegianUniversity of Tromsø lost 8 radioactive samples, including samples of caesium-137,americium-241, andstrontium-90. The samples were moved out of a secure location to be used for education. When the samples were supposed to be returned, the university was unable to find them. As of 4 November 2015[update], the samples are still missing.[44][45]
On 3 and 4 March 2016, unusually high levels of caesium-137 were detected in the air inHelsinki, Finland. According toSTUK, the country's nuclear regulator, measurements showed 4,000 μBq/m3 – about 1,000 times the usual level. An investigation by the agency traced the source to a building from which STUK and a radioactive waste treatment company operate.[46][47]
Thirteen people were exposed to caesium-137 in May 2019 at the Research and Training building in theHarborview Medical Center complex. A contract crew was transferring the caesium from the lab to a truck when the powder was spilled. Five people were decontaminated and released, but 8 who were more directly exposed were taken to the hospital while the research building was evacuated.[48]
Public health authorities inWestern Australia issued an emergency alert for a stretch of road measuring about 1,400 km after a capsule containing caesium-137 was lost in transport on 25 January 2023. The 8 mm capsule contained a small quantity of the radioactive material when it disappeared from a truck. The State Government immediately launched a search, with the WA Department of Health's chief health officerAndrew Robertson warning an exposed person could expect to receive the equivalent of "about 10X-rays an hour". Experts warned, if the capsule were found, the public should stay at least 5 metres away.[49] The capsule was found on 1 February 2023.[50]
A caesium-137 capsule went missing from a steam power plant inPrachin Buri province, Thailand on 23 February 2023, triggering a search by officials from Thailand'sOffice of Atoms for Peace (OAP) and the Prachin Buri provincial administration. However, the Thai public was not notified until 14 March.[51]
On 20 March, the Secretary-General of the OAP and the governor of Prachin Buri held a press conference stating that they had found caesium-137 contaminated furnace dust at a steel melting plant inKabin Buri district.[52]
On Friday, 5 April an emergency regime was introduced in the Russian city of Khabarovsk after a local resident accidentally discovered that radiation levels had jumped sharply in one of the industrial areas of the city. According to volunteers of the dosimetric control group, the dosimeter at the NP site showed up to 800 microsieverts, which is 1600 times the safe value.
Employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations fenced off the area of 30 by 30 meters (98 by 98 ft), where they found a capsule with caesium from a defectoscope. The find was placed in a protective container and taken away for disposal. This was first reported by the Novaya Gazeta.[53]
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