Alexander Litvinenko’s death, now deemed a murder by Scotland Yard, brings the topic of “what’s up with Russia?” right up onto the table. It’s like finding an earwig in your half eaten salad.  I gather from the tone of news articles that many are startled not just by the criminal use of a radionuclide, but by the layers of intrigue that are beginning to peel away.

Concurrent with Litvinenko’s demise, former Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar suffered an event in Dublin that may have been a poisoning. His recounting of the episode in a Financial Times article is interesting. 

In some ways the transfiguration of the USSR into contemporary Russia was less of a transition from some larval stage into a butterfly than it was the color change of a chameleon. To be sure, there were substantial changes in the geopolitical tectonics. But their rigid sphere of influence is definitely smaller than in the Soviet days. 

I visited Russia not so long ago.  I had studied Russian language as an undergraduate, so I wasn’t completely helpless. Nevertheless, I had to rely on Russian speakers to help with the details of travel. Russians are like everyone else- cynical towards their own politicians, but deeply patriotic.  Truly, to know Russia is to love Russia. I love the people and the rich culture. But, in my view, to know Russia is to fear it a bit as well.

As a post-doc I sat with Soviet colleagues and watched CNN coverage of the collapse of the USSR.   We watched coverage of the rise of Yeltsin in Moscow and the failure of Scud Missiles in Gulf War I.  My friends came to the US as Soviets and returned as Russians.  It was an odd time.

So, this matter with Litvinenko is surprising but not surprising.  That this place could produce a Putin and a Gorbachev within a few years of each other is not unexpected.  What does surprise me is the low priority that the west apparently places on constructive engagement with Russia.  The west has wasted a golden opportunity following the collapse of the USSR.  

One of the interesting parts of having a blog is that you get to see the search terms that people use to find your site.  We’ve been getting lots of hits lately from persons trying to squeeze polonium information out of the web.  I went through some venerable reference books on my shelf and collated some general fun factoids on that fashionable metal – polonium.

Polonium is actually a natural element found in thorium and uranium deposits.  In the Radiation Health Handbook I count 33 isotope entries for polonium, 7 of which are metastable, or isomeric, states. The known isotopes are Po-193 through Po-218. Po-209 has the longest half-life at 103 years.   Bismuth 209 is the heaviest stable nuclide. Nuclei heavier than bismuth often emit alpha particles, and do so exothermically or spontaneously.  Polonium, one atomic number above Bi, has no stable isotope. 

Loss of an alpha particle results in a drop of atomic weight of 4 and atomic number of 2.  You can think of an alpha particle, or helium nucleus, as a good leaving group.

Polonium is very scarce.  Its discovery, well known for being famous, was by Marie Curie and was accomplished by isolation from tons of ore. It was named after her home country of Poland. Today the the production of Po is effectively limited to Po-210  and is bred in nuclear reactiors via the transmutation of Bi-209 by neutron absorption to afford Bi-210.  Neutron rich nuclides can drop their neutron count through the emission of beta particles (electrons) with a subsequent uptick of atomic number by one. So the Bi-210 nucleus transforms to Po-210 by beta emission.  The polonium is isolated by fractional distillation from the remaining bismuth.

One gram of pure Po-210 is said to evolve 141 watts of heat. Consequently, one use of Po-210 has been for thermal electric power generation. It’s near exclusive emission of alpha’s minimizes shielding problems.  Another important use of alpha emitters is for the generation of neutrons. This interesting process uses alpha particles to interact with beryllium nuclei to afford the extrusion of neutrons.  In this way it is possible to have a compact neutron source.  Place the source in a tank of water or paraffin, arrange for an opening, and presto! You have a cheap neutron beam source- sometimes called a neutron Howitzer.  Plutonium-beryllium (PuBe) is more common than polonium because of the long half-life of available non-fissile plutonium sources. The neutron Howitzer is commonly used in neutron activation studies.

The chemistry of polonium is exotic by virtue of it rarity and the pragmatics relating to its high specific activity.  It’s high specific activity causes it to radiolyze the solvent that the reaction or other manipulation is occuring in.  This is especially problematic for organic solvents. The high activity will pose serious safety risks for the chemist in handling. Advances in organopolonium chemistry have been complicated by the pyrolysis of the organic fragments via radiolysis.  This also complicates the preparation of crystals for x-ray crystallography. A properly equipped facility night have a remote manipulation setup for handling high activity materials.  This is especially critical when the permissable body burdens are in the picogram range.

I keep thinking about this Alexander Litvinenko character who, as the media reports, was mortally radiolyzed.  Irrespective of the intent of the bad guys, the effect of it may go far beyond the mans unfortunate death.  It is a kind of vignetted picture of what terror with radioactive materials might look like. 

In a quiet location, a lab perhaps, or a public storage shed, the bad guys had to formulate some kind of potion, some kind of concentrate that could be added to Litvinenko’s food or drink without alerting him to the change.  And I think it is reasonable to assume that the perpetrators are not “suicide poisoners”, so they would have to do the deed without contaminating themselves. So either the poison was prepared in the field by the perpetrators, or it was prepared in advance by others elsewhere.  It might even be that the person(s) who administrated the poison were unaware that it was a radiological hazard.

Because Po-210 only emits alpha’s, in principle a hermetically sealed container with a small quantity could be moved past radiation detectors at ports of entry without triggering alarms made to detect gamma radiation. This assumes that the polonium is highly pure. Trace contaminants that are gamma emitters could be detectable.  And because Po-210  as the pure nuclide is a strict alpha emitter, it’s shielding requirements would be minimal.  This nuclide seems well suited for villany.   

On the plus side to this scary scenario is the short half-life of Po-210.  Admittedy, this offers scant comfort for those who might ingest or inhale the material.  But, by comparison with gamma radiation where heavy shielding and/or a goodly distance from the source is needed, the short half-life of Po-210 and the poor penetrating ability of alpha particles makes remediation a little easier, at least in principle.  Inhalation and ingestion are the main exposure problems with alpha emitters.

It will be interesting to see if the Chicken Littles in congress will rush back to the hen house extrapolating furiously (flapping and clucking noises) about this “new threat” to homeland security.  Lordy.   Let’s hope they don’t screw up things too badly for legitimate users of radioactive materials.

It is hard to say just how widespread radiological crimes could become.  Because of the short 138 day half-life of Po-210, an accumulated stockpile would rapidly dilute with Pb-206. This event may result in a tightening of the supply of such materials.  My guess is that terrorists will look to other rad materials for their maleavolent designs. The Litvinenko murder has the appearance of an assasination by an organization that actually has a mailing address.