Caesium-137 alienation around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Together with caesium-134, iodine-131, and strontium-90, caesium-137 was among the isotopes distributed by the reactor explosion that constitute the greatest risk to health. The mean contamination of caesium-137 in Germany following the Chernobyl disaster was 2000 to 4000 Bq/m. This corresponds to a contamination of 1 mg/km of caesium-137, totaling about 500 grams deposited over all of Germany. In Scandinavia, some reindeer and sheep exceeded the Norwegian legal limit (3000 Bq/kg) 26 years after Chernobyl. As of 2016 the Chernobyl caesium-137 has decayed by half, but could have been locally concentrated by much
Isotope separation first isotope separator was developed at the Copenhagen Cyclotron by Bohr and coworkers using the principle of electromagnetic separation. Today, there are many laboratories around the world that supply beams of radioactive ions for use. Arguably the principal Isotope Separator On Line (ISOL) is ISOLDE at CERN, which is a joint European facility spread across the Franco-Swiss border near the city of Geneva. This laboratory uses mainly proton spallation of uranium carbide targets to produce a wide range of radioactive fission fragments that are not found naturally on earth. During spallation (bombardment with high energy protons), a uranium carbide target