As part of an extended lab in nuclear science, students in Physics III separated uranium 238 from one of its daughter products, thorium 234. The separated products where imbedded in collodion and studied with a proportional counter and cloud chamber. Movie of cloud chamber. Dewayne Woodside and Scott MacDonald are two physics students responsible for chemical and physical separation of the two elements.
Physical separation depends on varying solubility of thorium and uranium in ethyl acetate.
Thorium 234 has a short half life of 24.1 days, and the separated material is allowing students to attempt to verify this half-life value. The data are dribbling in a few data points per day. So far the results are consistent with a half-life of 24 days. We'll have definitive results in a month.