Abstract
PROF. A. SMITS, in a letter in NATURE of Jan. 2, 1926, announced the possibility of transmuting lead into thallium and mercury. In the December number of Zeits.f. Elektrochem. these experiments are described in more detail by Smits and Karssen. They used a quartz tube, furnished with two steel electrodes with carbon points, which dip down into the liquid lead. The amount of lead used is about 900 grams, which is kept liquid in a side tube all the time. When an experiment is performed, the tube is tipped and the lead is brought over into the main tube. The arc which is burning between two inner surfaces of lead is either continuous or intermittent, the main consideration being to obtain as high a current density as possible. The first method gave strong spectroscopic evidence of mercury and thallium after 10 hours' burning at ±35 amp. The second is the so-called sparking method, in which a current of 60–100 amp. can pass through the tube at the make of the arc, that is, when the tube is short-circuited through the liquid lead. Here all the mercury lines, even the very weak ones, were present after 914; hours' sparking.
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THOMASSEN, L. Transmutation of Elements. Nature 119, 813 (1927). https://doi.org/10.1038/119813a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/119813a0
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