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Natural Thorium 232 is abundant in the environment. As an industrial material thorium has been used to enhance a
great number of products. Because all thorium isotopes are radioactive, non radioactive substitutes like cerium have been employed, with a certain degrading of the original specifications. In some applications, only thorium can perform, such as filaments for high power radio transmitting tubes. .
The comments below were in relation to thoriated TIG welding electrodes but applies to thorium in general. Usually thorium is supplied in an oxide or nitrate, but pure thorium metal exists ( very expensive!!).
Depending on how long ago the thorium 232 was refined, it will contain more or less of its decay products also. Freshly refined Thorium would be thorium metal only if the process is efficient. This includes both the Th-232 parent and the Th-228 decay product, since all isotopes of the same element are indistinguishable in chemical reactions.
The Th-228 would promptly regenerate all the lower decay products, which include radium radon, polonium(s),radio-lead,radio-bismuth and thallium-208*.
Soon after refining, a few years, the Th-232 parent will regenerate the upper members of the decay chain which includes radium, Ac-2228 and Th-228.
When burned or ground up on a grinder, the electrode would release these various elements into the environment, including the radon , which is a gas.
Each element will continue to go through radioactive decay, transmuting to the next element in the chain. Each individual element can be considered a parent of its own decay chain. All will eventually end up as stable Lead (Pb) -208.
More than you wanted or needed to know probably, but some of us spend a great deal of time trying to identify each and every one of these elements individually, as a hobby.
Although it takes specialized equipment, rudimentary tests can be done with only a pancake probe, a paper card, and a piece of aluminum sheet. Application of the card over the face of the detector removes the alpha particles, application of the aluminum sheet ( 3mm) removes the alphas plus the betas.
Simple arithmetic reveals the alpha, beta and gamma components.
* Tl-208's gamma of 2.62 MeV is used to verify the presence of thorium in ore, as it is a unique energy signature.
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