Flag An MI-5 British Security Service officer enters a bar in London as an undercover infiltrator of a terrorist cell. The barkeep is paid by a double agent to serve a pot of “special” tea to the officer; the tea is later found to be laced with the isotope Polonium-210 (at wt = 209.98286 amu, T1⁄2 = 138.376 days). During the 1 hour meeting in the bar, the officer drinks the tea, which contains 0.5 micrograms of Po-210 per ml, consuming the tea at a rate of 100 ml/hr. At the same time, his body processes the ingested isotope, eliminating it through a well mixed gastrointestinal volume of 1000 ml at a rate of 90 ml/hr through elimination processes. The net remaining metabolized Polonium-210 that stays in the body emits an energetic alpha particle (5.3 MeV per disintegration) that deposits the full decay energy immediately in local tissue, causing extreme doses. The activity of Po-210 at any time t is given by:N(t)λ=A(t)=Aoe(−λt) dis/s The total number of disintegrations is in the interval of time from [0,τ] is τ Total disintegrations = int_{}0^{}tau A(t)dt Po-210 distributes itself almost uniformly throughout 10 major organs in the body, including the liver and kidneys, where each organ can be assumed to have an average mass of 1.0 kg. Also, it can be assumed that 40% of all ingested Po-210 remains trapped, long term, in each organ. A novel treatment using diethylene triamine pentaacetic acid (DTPA) chelating agent can be administered in the hospital to remove Po-210 within 72 hours of the initial ingestion.

3a. Identify how Po-210 is produced. Please be specific.

3b. Based on the information given, neglecting any decay, compute the average amount of Po-210 in micrograms in the MI5 officer over the first hour? Using this average mass as the amount, neglecting isotope decay over this first hour, compute the dose to the average organ during the first hour.

3c. Based on the total mass deposited at the end of the first hour when the officer stopped drinking the tea, now accounting for decay, if the lethal dose to each organ is 5 Gy (1 Gy = 1 J/kg), can the officer survive in the next 72 hour period before the hospital chelating treatment takes effect? If not, when does the dose become lethal?

3d. What is the total dose over the first 14 days?

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3a Po210 is produced by the radioactive decay of radon222 When radon222 decays it emits an alpha par... View the full answer