Talk:Americium-241

Hazards

I have serious concerns about the accuracy of this section. It doesn't have references to support all of its claims, and the three references it does have are incomplete (one is an old book in German, so I have no way to verify it).

First Alert (smoke detector manufacturer) claims that

Americium 241 is harmless outside the body because the radiation it emits is too weak to penetrate human skin. Swallowing Americium—even though this is not recommended—is also considered harmless. In known cases where the element was consumed, the substance passed through the gastrointestinal tract and out of the body without leaving any detectable contamination.

Another page says

The radiation from exposure to americium is the primary cause of health effects from absorbed americium. Americium moves rapidly through the body after uptake and is concentrated within the bones for a long period of time. During this storage americium will slowly decay and release radioactive particles and rays. These rays can cause alteration of genetic materials and bone cancers.

Damage to organs due to americium exposure is highly unlikely for humans, because americium is accumulated in organs only a short period of time.

First Alert isn't neutral, but neither of these statements align with the dire claims in this article. Perhaps just rewording some things to be clear about the amounts of Am-241 in a smoke detector would suffice. StevenBell (talk) 20:14, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

First Alert are talking nonsense. There are clear, well-known risks from swallowing alpha emitters, which is what Americium 241 is. There is also a risk from inhaling alpha emitters as dust. They also don't address the question of absorption in the body, which poses a further risk, nor do they address the question of bioaccumulation, which is when the body cannot remove a substance and instead remains in the body, and accumulates as the person is exposed to more of the material.

Whether the risk is low or not, it is certainly not harmless, as First Alert claim. Andrewk7 (talk) 12:01, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Am-241 emits a well-known strong gamma ray that certainly will penetrate human skin. Still, it seems to me the hazards section is overdone - we don't generally need that detailed a discussion in articles about individual isotopes, regardless of accuracy. 73.228.195.198 (talk) 01:37, 16 July 2025 (UTC)

Americium 241 decay process

What is the americium 241 decay proces? İs it starts itselfs? How can i stop it? 88.245.98.219 (talk) 05:30, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

As stated in the article, americium-241 almost always decays by alpha emission to neptunium-237. Radioactive decay is a stochastic process, meaning that at any time, an atom can spontaneously decay, and there's no such thing as "stopping" it from happening. ComplexRational (talk) 16:07, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

The only way to stop americium-241 from being radioactive would be to change the fundamental physical properties of the universe. This is not currently feasible. :-) It would also cause some elements that are currently stable to become radioactive, along with other disastrous effects, so the net benefit would be questionable. If you would be interested in reading some science fiction which explores this, you might try Isaac Asimov's book The Gods Themselves. BunsenH (talk) 16:44, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Neutron absorption

This sentence is hard to follow: In short, most 241Am needs to absorb two neutrons before again becoming a fissile isotope, except that that becomes 242mAm (fissile) or fissions directly.

The previous text does not mention 241Am absorbing two neutrons, so this doesn't seem to be an "in short" summary, and I don't see how absorbing two neutrons could turn 241Am into 242Am (not 243Am). Geoffrey.landis (talk) 13:40, 9 April 2026 (UTC)