[time-nuts] RE Rb danger
FISCH, MICHAEL
mfisch at kent.edu
Wed Jul 10 14:49:35 EDT 2013
Please relax Rb is rubidium. It has a large number of isotopes but almost all rubidium is either stable (AW=85), or an isotope that is a beta (ie. electron) emitter. Electrons generally don't travel too far. Rubidium is used in fireworks (Ok guys who make fireworks are maybe a bit overly brave). I imagine a broken lamp will just allow the gas to diffuse into the air. Leave a window open for a while and things should be safe.
If you ingest it, rubidium is not particularly toxic, wiki states a 70 kg person typically has .36 gm of rubidium in them, and 10-100 x this amount appears to be fine. Potassium has a similar radioactive isotope (very small fraction however) that we routinely ingest with bananas. In fact, Rb readily substitutes for K because they are both alkali metals. Radium is Ra.
Mike
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