4 ms·

Static Eliminators (1960s and 1980s)

25 points by dcminter 5y ago

jzellis 5y ago
Somewhere in FSB headquarters there's a room with a bunch of eBay bots buying these up from collectors and a bunch of dudes in hazmat suits with hammers and Tupperware bowls smashing em up as they arrive and saving the bits for later
- xattt 5y ago
  Half-life of polonium (138 days) is a limiting factor in stockpiling these things. If you are the state, you will go straight to the literal source for these things.
- Maursault 5y ago
  For ingestion, a median lethal dose is around 238 μCi or 50 nanograms. [1] The article doesn't specify exactly how much Polonium is in these, but offers hints: > The beads, approximately 20 to 60 um in diameter But how many? > The Po-210 activity is often on the order of 200 to 500 uCi at the time of manufacture, but this activity decreases quickly according to the 138 day half-life of Po-210. Sounds like if the product was new, and Polonium harvested, there might be enough there to kill one or two people, if ingested, except... > the polonium is bound up in a ceramic matrix so that it should not be assimilated if the spheres were ingested A little moisture also defeats static, but it would be reckless and irresponsible to try and put that in an anti-static product. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko#Poison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvine...
  - cperciva 5y ago
    The polonium being bound in a ceramic matrix protects it from accidental release, but it's easy enough to extract it deliberately.
Daniel_sk 5y ago
They are still sold: https://amstat.com/products/anti-static-brush-with-ionizing-cartridge-1.html https://amstat.com/products/anti-static-brush-with-ionizing-...
Cerium 5y ago
I bought an analytical balance that came with one of these mounted inside to remove the forces created by static. It is about worthless now, since the half life is fairly short.
ghaff 5y ago
Variants of those were extremely common and presumably fairly inexpensive in the 1970s to brush dust off of photographic negatives.
eternityforest 5y ago
It's crazy that these still exist. It only lasts 1 year? With how briefly they are often used and how tiny the power output must be, I suspect an electronic version could last a lot longer on a single battery. There's a modern version that is literally a piezo crystal powered by pulling a gun trigger. That's probably not much energy.

25 points by dcminter 5y ago

Somewhere in FSB headquarters there's a room with a bunch of eBay bots buying these up from collectors and a bunch of dudes in hazmat suits with hammers and Tupperware bowls smashing em up as they arrive and saving the bits for later

xattt 5y ago
Half-life of polonium (138 days) is a limiting factor in stockpiling these things. If you are the state, you will go straight to the literal source for these things.
Maursault 5y ago
For ingestion, a median lethal dose is around 238 μCi or 50 nanograms. [1] The article doesn't specify exactly how much Polonium is in these, but offers hints: > The beads, approximately 20 to 60 um in diameter But how many? > The Po-210 activity is often on the order of 200 to 500 uCi at the time of manufacture, but this activity decreases quickly according to the 138 day half-life of Po-210. Sounds like if the product was new, and Polonium harvested, there might be enough there to kill one or two people, if ingested, except... > the polonium is bound up in a ceramic matrix so that it should not be assimilated if the spheres were ingested A little moisture also defeats static, but it would be reckless and irresponsible to try and put that in an anti-static product. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko#Poison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvine...
- cperciva 5y ago
  The polonium being bound in a ceramic matrix protects it from accidental release, but it's easy enough to extract it deliberately.

Daniel_sk 5y ago

They are still sold: https://amstat.com/products/anti-static-brush-with-ionizing-cartridge-1.html https://amstat.com/products/anti-static-brush-with-ionizing-...

Cerium 5y ago

I bought an analytical balance that came with one of these mounted inside to remove the forces created by static. It is about worthless now, since the half life is fairly short.

ghaff 5y ago

Variants of those were extremely common and presumably fairly inexpensive in the 1970s to brush dust off of photographic negatives.

eternityforest 5y ago

It's crazy that these still exist. It only lasts 1 year? With how briefly they are often used and how tiny the power output must be, I suspect an electronic version could last a lot longer on a single battery. There's a modern version that is literally a piezo crystal powered by pulling a gun trigger. That's probably not much energy.