Element collecting from hydrogen to bismuth (except the radioactive technetium and promethium) are collected, with the exceptions of the extremely long-lived thorium and uranium. It is possible to source other radioactive elements, such as radium (usually in the form of radium sulphate as part of luminescent paint on antique watch hands), tritium - a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, americium (in the form of radioactive buttons containing 0.29 micrograms of americium extracted from older smoke detectors), and technetium. Element collecting Element collecting is the hobby of collecting the chemical elements. Many element collectors simply enjoy finding peculiar uses of chemical elements. Others enjoy
Atomic vapor laser isotope separation Atomic vapor laser isotope separation Atomic vapor laser isotope separation, or AVLIS, is a method by which specially tuned lasers are used to separate isotopes of uranium using selective ionization of hyperfine transitions. As compared to gas centrifuges the AVLIS process provides high energy efficiency, high separation factors, and a low volume of radioactive waste. A similar technology, using molecules instead of atoms, is molecular laser isotope separation (MLIS). The absorption lines of and U differ slightly due to hyperfine structure; for example, the U absorption peak of 502.74 nanometers shifts to 502.73 nm in U. AVLIS uses tunable dye