It may seem like a joke at first but, yes, this is actual plutonium for sale…. with a big asterisk (read on)

If the general public is aware of any element that is synonymous with danger and inaccessibility to the average person it has to be plutonium. It is the magic sauce that gives nukes their “pop”, that fuels the nightmare of another Chernobyl or Fukushima and that creates the angst of a terrorist group which could somehow get their hands on some. Plutonium, in short, is if not mankind’s worst creation outright then at least the most dubious technological breakthrough achievement when you consider the risk-benefits scale. You could make a good case how anyone would have to be insane to want to have anything to do with it.

Like any other forbidden fruit, its very existence draws interest though. The millions of people who’ve watched YouTube videos on this subject, as well as the countless web pages devoted to it, confirm the fascination of the general public (or at least science buffs). And there’s no doubt that at least a small percentage of them would love to see the real deal up close and personal - if it was safe to do so. With a half life of 24,000 years, plutonium 239, this element’s most common isotope, is moderately radioactive. A golf-ball sized piece of it might be safe to hold briefly but you definitely wouldn’t want to leave it around as a living room ornament. Madame Curie famously kept a vial of radium by her bedside - ten times deadlier than plutonium - and it repaid her fascination with the cancer that eventually killed her.

While there’s obviously no question that plutonium, if it has to exist at all, is best kept safely locked up in government laboratories, there was one tiiiiny exception to this rule. In the Soviet Union of the 1960’s, the first commercial smoke detectors came to market. As was the case in the Western world, the crude electronics of the age required relatively large amounts of a radioactive signal to be detected by a nearby sensor. If a fire were to break out its smoke would waft across the air gap in between the source and detector disrupting the signal which would then trip an alarm. Obviously, a much simpler thermostat could detect a rise in heat but not be terribly useful as a warning device. Anyway, while the smoke detectors in American devices contained americium-241 for this purpose, their Russian counterparts used a dab of plutonium-239.

And now we get to the asterisk part mentioned in the opening. That “dab” is really really small. We’re talking approximately 35 billionths of a gram. Sounds puny, right? And yet… that eensy binsy amount of plutonium, smaller than a mote of dust, is shedding mass at the rate of 21,000,000 atoms every second of every hour. That’s equivalent to 0.4 mSv or, viewed in a more relatable way, about a week’s worth of normal radiation condensed into a second; except continuously and winding down at that glacial rate of 50% every 24,000 years!

In this case our sample is thankfully not a dust mote suspended in plastic. What you’re looking at on the picture to left is the radioactive source from one such vintage detector, with the vaguely foreboding cyrillic acronym РИД-6M. It is a brass spindle onto which is placed a porcelain sleeve. The Russian method consisted of taking a mixture of plutonium oxide and glaze which was then baked onto this porcelain. The radioactive surface would then emanate its rays in the direction of the sensor. The presence of this elusive element can be confirmed by gamma ray spectroscopy as shown on the accompanying chart, which also shows traces of other radioactive isotopes born from plutonium’s decay.

Russian law has made owning one of these samples practically impossible. Enterprising individuals who attempt to smuggle them out of the country take on a huge risk (see https://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/smoke-detectors-plutonium-seized-near-bishkek-kyrgyzstan). Given this scenario, it’s unlikely that many will take the risk of exporting these devices for the benefit of consumers in the West.

Suspended in an inch of plastic on every side, this plutonium-laced plug is fully shielded from those rays. Even if pried out of this cube - which we very very very much discourage you from doing - the spindle would be harmless unless swallowed. And if you were boneheaded enough to do all that, well, check in with a doctor ASAP.

This item is now discontinued.