Question

help please .You have an unknown radioactive preparations. How can you most easily determine if there is alpha, betta or gamma radiation? help please .You have an unknown radioactive preparations. How can you most easily determine if there is alpha, betta or gamma radiation? @Physics

Answer 1

If you take a Geiger counter, you can use it to detect different types of radiation.

For example, alpha radiation doesn't travel far and can't penetrate paper for instance. So hold the Geiger counter next to the preparation, then place a piece of paper between the instrument and the preparation. If it stops, then it was all alpha radiation.

Beta radiation is often very difficult to detect as it is weak and also travels over short ranges, e.g., hydrogen-3. I'm not sure how to measure that directly.

So if you're pressed, I'd put the solutions in mass spectrometers to figure out their constituent elements and mass numbers, to find out what radioactive emitters are present.

Answer 2

Gamma radiation on the other hand is very penetrating. Using the alpha radiation measurement procedure, if the Geiger continues to detect radiation, then the radiation is almost certainly gamma.