thorium exposure from lantern mantle

hi, on vacation and totally bummed out...i was setting up a propane lantern and accidently did the pre mantle burn indoors....have been reading about exposure to the thorium that is on the mantles...am i going to get cancer from the smoke associated with this?

 

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Chances are, it was a mantle made of nonradioactive yttrium. They haven't made the thorium type in a couple of decades.

 

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Unless you made a point of ingesting the mantle material on a regular basis, the limited exposure you have been subject to should not be of too great a concern.

 

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it was thorium...there was a small paper informing of it

 

I would suggest buying an LED lantern and giving the antique one away. That is what I did, and haven't looked back.

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@Stoniphi
By Lantern, do you mean a TV set?

I've still got my old CRT Lantern.
I'd like to buy one of those new flat screen things, but my old TV won't break down, uses less electricity, and has a perfect picture. (Sony)
Replacing it would be stupid, wouldn't it?????

@Dougcorn
If you continually worry about things like this you may be suffering from some variety of clinical anxiety.

Otherwise, forget it.
You've got to die from something.
And in this case, you 99.999% chance won't.

added later.
If you are suffering from anxiety, that is something to be worried about.

 

How do you change the channel?

 

. . .yes, throium, if present in the lantern mantle vapors, poses a 'miniscule' risk of being a carcinogen (via alpha-particle interaction with cellular tissues - breaks the weak hydrogen bonds in RNA/DNA components) . However . . . . the risk is somewhat akin to the risk from radon (natural) inhalation . . . anticipate any resulting 'cancer' to develop over a period of 20 - 30 years. In other words, something else will 'get you' long before the throrium exposure does. Besides. the body has a unique ability to 'repair' cellular damage . . . incidental cellular damage rarely develops to a cancerous outcome.

 

Were you trying to make your own nuclear reactor?

 

Aladdin lamps also use this type of mantle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=095uCbLssKY

 

I wouldn't worry too much. You breathe far more thorium from coal fired power plants than you will get from breathing in a room with a thorium mantle burning.

 

I wouldn't worry at all.

The Thorium dioxide doesn't burn away when you light the mantle.
Thorium dioxide has the highest melting point of ANY oxide, 3,390 °C.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_dioxide

Arthur

 

thanks for the help Arthur, really appreciate it.