Orangeman Burns - Sriram Sridharan's Blog

I know I haven't blogged for a week but here's something to makeup for it. It's a review of my GTLS Tritium based glowing radioactive keychain that I bought at DX. Here's a review:

Pros:

• It’s tritium powered. That’s a real radioactive isotope of Hydrogen.
• It works quite well for being a novelty item.
• Converts energy from beta decay of Tritium, releasing charged particles which impinge on the phosphor coated glass vial. This causes the vial to glow. Simple yet fascinating.
• Halflife of 13 years. This means that the intensity of the visible light emitted will be halved after about 13 years!!
• Amazing to show off to friends. Now all of mine want one!!

• Pricey.
• Considered as Dual Use tech in the US and hence may land you into hot water if a scintillation counter picks up a reading. Typically a Geiger Muller counter will not pick up a reading from this keychain.

• It’s quite visible in the night and once your pupils dilate, you’ll be able to see that this keychain will illuminate a 3-4 sq inch area around it.
• It’s safe for human handling as this unit only emits beta radiation. This radiation will, in most cases, not penetrate the glass wall of the vial.