I saw a comment the other day that “steel forged before the nuclear age is very valuable.” and talked about the lengths they go to salvage old battleships etc. for steel made “before the Manhattan project.” What does this mean? How did nuclear testing permanently affect steel worldwide?

Question

I saw a comment the other day that “steel forged before the nuclear age is very valuable.” and talked about the lengths they go to salvage old battleships etc. for steel made “before the Manhattan project.” What does this mean? How did nuclear testing permanently affect steel worldwide?

In: Chemistry

Answer 1

Certain applications require steel with very very very low radioactivity, and the [Low Background Steel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel) is generally only acquired through salvaging steel made before the first nuclear tests

Steel is generally made using air from the atmosphere which now contains a low level of Cobalt-60 which is radioactive. This cobalt gets trapped in the steel and gives it a low radiation signature.

Unless you’re building a tool to detect low level radiation it doesn’t really matter, but if you’re trying to build a Geiger counter or an even more precise instrument then the low level radiation from the trapped cobalt 60 can give you false readings.