Uranium glass. Products from uranium glass (photo)

2024 Author: Priscilla Miln | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-01 17:06

Uranium glass, vaseline, canary - these are the names of products with the addition of uranium oxides as a dye. Radioactive items? How did it happen that household products were produced using the 92nd element (according to the periodic table of D. I. Mendeleev), the same as for the atomic bomb? It turns out that glass is extremely dangerous? Or is it not?

What is uranium and its oxides?

The German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth in 1789 obtained a "new metal" from a black mineral mined in the mines of Joachimstal in Bohemia (modern Czech Republic), calling it uranium. He sincerely thought that it was pure metal - he did not begin to check this assumption in modern conditions. Why "uranium"?

Just eight years earlier, in 1871, Frederick William Herschel (a German astronomer working in England) had discovered a new planet in the solar system, the seventh. It is fifteen times the mass of the Earth. Herschel named it Uranus after the ancient Greekthe mythological all-powerful spouse of Gaia (Earth).

Only fifty years later, in 1841, the French chemist Eugene Peligot proved that the "new, eighteenth metal", obtained by Klaproth, is an oxide (composed of oxygen). Peligo received pure metal, but it was not he who entered the history of the discovery of uranium, but Klaproth.

Almost half a century before 1896, uranium was not in demand in metallurgy, and only after the discovery of the radioactivity properties of this element, scientists showed interest in it. But until 1939, when the results of nuclear fission experiments were published, uranium ores were only mined to produce radioactive radium.

Historical Details

The use of natural uranium oxide in Europe dates back to the first century BC: fragments of pottery covered with yellow glaze were found during excavations in Pompeii.

During archaeological work in Italy at Cape Posilippo (Gulf of Naples) in 1912, pieces of a yellow mosaic were found. Colored glass in its composition contained one percent uranium oxide. This find dates back to 79 AD

For the production of enamels and mosaic glass of this period, ores were brought to Europe from Africa.

According to written sources from China that have come down to us, local glassblowers experimented in the 16th and 17th centuries with the addition of uranium ores to give colored shades to glass. Uranium glassware from this period has not yet been found.

Natural metal oxides that often accompanied the mining of silver ores inEurope, were noticed by glassblowers - they have been trying to change the color of glass for a very long time.

Uranium glass: the beginning of a magnificent procession through the countries

The Habsburg silver mines located in Bohemia abounded in natural ores of uranium _{– pitchblende (uraninite). And, of course, glassworkers have always wanted to use natural dye to get colored products.}

The third generation of the famous Riedel dynasty, Franz Xaver Anton, experimented in the early nineteenth century with filling glass with color. It was successful to add uranium oxides to the mixture, the result was a shade from yellow to deep green, and uranium glass glowed greenish under the rays of the rising and setting sun, which gave it a certain magical mystery.

Since 1830, the dynastic successor Josef Riedel (Franz's nephew, who married his daughter), having studied the experimental data of his father-in-law, established a high-tech production of yellow (different shades), green (up to the darkest) and ruby uranium glass. Until 1848 (the year of Josef Riedel's death), the output of products - vases, glasses, glasses, bubbles, buttons, beads - _{only increased.}

At the same time, the English craftsmen presented two colored uranium glass candlesticks as a gift to their Queen Victoria, which is documented. This fact suggests that not onlyCzech Republic, but also in England, craftsmen worked out a new recipe for staining glass products.

Uranium glass objects: mass production

Increasing production volumes throughout Europe (France, the Netherlands, Belgium, England) have made glass in demand and fashionable. In the Czech Republic alone, the Joachimstal plants in Bohemia produced more than 1,600 tons of all kinds of uranium glass products until 1898.

Since 1830, the Gusevsky plant in Russia also began to produce similar products.

Yellow and green uranium glass was comparatively inexpensive. For its release, a barium and calcium charge was used with the addition of potassium and boron, which gave a more intense glow.

Until 1896 (discovery of radioactivity by A. A. Becquerel), no one limited the extraction and use of uranium ores, there was only an increase in order to isolate radium from them.

Features

When absorbing UV rays, uranium glass transfers energy to another region of the radiation spectrum - green. Moreover, this secondary radiation is scattered without continuing the incident beam. This property is called fluorescence. Not all painted yellow and green products have this feature, but only uranium glass. Photos of items under UV light prove the authenticity and collectible value of the items.

Dangerous neighborhood?

Uranium glass with a high degree of fluorescence should contain 0.3 to 6% uranium oxides. Increasing the concentration reduces the glow, as well as the content in the mixturelead, but increases radioactivity (radiation).

Master glassblowers, like everyone else before 1939, were unaware of the toxicity of uranium and its radiation hazard. Direct contact with the ores, a long stay with them in dangerous proximity led to frequent incomprehensible diseases, often ending in the death of masters.

But uranium glass products were distributed all over the world, and no one felt any discomfort and did not get sick, being near them. Why?

The radiation level of uranium glass products is low - from 20 to 1500 µR/h, the allowable background limit is 30 µR/h. This means that if there are objects made of uranium glass nearby, then you have to stand near them continuously for more than ten years to get radiation sickness.

Stop production of uranium glass

Before World War II, uranium was not of interest to physicists. Only in 1939, when a model of a chain reaction was developed with the release of an enormous amount of energy, did a model of a nuclear bomb begin to be developed based on uranium. And then developed deposits of uranium ores were required.

The production of uranium glass didn't stop until almost the 1950s.

All uranium deposits in all countries were taken into account, and in England, not only raw materials, but also finished products were seized from the producers of "vaseline glass".

To date, uranium glass is produced in minimal quantities in the US and the Czech Republic. ATas dyes, depleted uranium is used, obtained in the process of enriching uranium for nuclear fuel. At the same time, uranium glassware, like other products, becomes quite expensive, while it remains quite popular.

How to identify uranium glass?

If you carefully review the stocks of old (USSR times) dishes in grandmother's sideboards, in the country house, in the attic, you can find yellow or green transparent dishes, which, perhaps, will glow in the rays of the early sun. Artifacts can be yellow or green s alt shakers, ashtrays, vases, glasses, buttons, beads, even old green door (window) handles.

Flea markets have all of the above. By bargaining, you can become the owner of delicious rarities.

Make sure that these are objects made of uranium glass, you need to use a UV lamp and a Geiger counter. That's the only way real collectors do it.

Uranium antiques

Due to the fact that uranium glass was mass-produced, the population has preserved a large number of items of yellow and green color. In some cases they are of historical interest, sometimes they are antique, collectible.

The uranium glass vases featured in the gallery catalogs of many countries are made in different styles, from Biedermeier (nineteenth century) to Art Deco (twentieth).

Collectors are also interested in figurines of animals and birds made of uranium glass, bottles and goblets, tableware - plates, saucers, saucers,glasses, wine sets.

Uranium products in the US

In English-speaking countries, uranium glass in the twentieth century began to be called "vaseline" because of the similarity of color with the common ointment of the same name. Glass, except for transparent yellow and green, has subspecies - carnival (with multi-colored inserts), Depression glass (all products, regardless of style, produced in the USA during the Great Depression), custard (opaque pale yellow), jadeite (opaque pale yellow). green), Burmese (opaque with shades of pale pink to yellow).

Where else have uranium ore additives been used?

Na₂U₂O_{7 - sodium uranate - used by painters as a yellow pigment. For painting porcelain and ceramics (glaze, enamels) in black, brown, green and yellow, uranium oxides of various oxidation states were used. Uranyl nitrate was used early in the twentieth century in photography to enhance the negatives and to tint the positives brown.}