polonium 210
...I worked as an industrial chemist many years ago (how I ended up working at a CAB is a long and complicated story) so when it became known that polonium 210 (210Po) had been used to kill Alexander Litvinenko, the chemistry nerd in me needed to know more about this material - and what I learned astounded me -
- 210Po is an extremely rare material - only about 100 grams in total are produce each year - that is roughly a one inch cube
- 210Po is 400,000 times more toxic than cyanide
- one gram of 210Po is enough (if effectively delivered) to poison 100 million people (nearly twice the population of Britain)
- a particle weighing only 6.8 picograms or 0.000 000 000 0068 grams is enough to seriously damage the health of a single person
- 210Po is extraordinarily radioactive, however the radiation it produces cannot penetrate a piece of paper - it is only dangerous (broadly) if some gets inside you
- 210Po is hot in more ways than one - one gram of it gives of as much heat as 150 watt light bulb
- 210Po is so radioactive that the air around a piece of it glows blue
All of these facts make it extraordinary that is was chosen by Alexander Litvinenko's killers - it is a truly sadistic way to kill anyone; it leaves a clear trail of where it has been (both before the poisoning and after) and it is possible (by using a kind of chemical finger-printing) to track down where it came from; the risk to the person administering it is extremely high, as are the risks to other people who come into contact with the victim, the killers, or those who are unfortunate enough to simply go to the places where the victim has been.
3 comments:
It's such a bizarre story. Presumably the use of polonium is making some kind of point, but what?
Bizarre is the word - the whole thing is almost beyond comprehension - I suppose it could be intended as some kind of terrible warning to those who oppose state/quasi-state forces in Russia?
It certainly is. I don't think that the way it was reported is reassuring either. The updates from the hospital where he was being treated were incredible. At one point, they reported that 3 unidentified small packages had been discovered in his intestine, it later turned out that they were put there by the Doctors treating him!
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