Radioactivity indium in LCD display!!!

[v4000ds]

I disassembled the LCD monitor and found films there that looked like transparent mirrors. I wanted to get some silver from there and I started googling "silver from LCD", "metals from LCD". I found an article that says it's indium!

Recovering a rare metal from LCDs to avoid depleting key resource - American Chemical Society

American Chemical Society: Chemistry for Life.

www.acs.org

I opened a wikipedia page

Indium - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Indium has 39 known isotopes, ranging in mass number from 97 to 135. Only two isotopes occur naturally as primordial nuclides: indium-113, the only stable isotope, and indium-115, which has a half-life of 4.41×1014 years, four orders of magnitude greater than the age of the Universe and nearly 30,000 times greater than that of natural thorium.[19] The half-life of 115In is very long because the beta decay to 115Sn is spin-forbidden.[20] Indium-115 makes up 95.7% of all indium. Indium is one of three known elements (the others being tellurium and rhenium) of which the stable isotope is less abundant in nature than the long-lived primordial radioisotopes.[21]

Indium-115 makes up 95.7% of all indium!!!

I smelled these transparent mirrors and they had an unusual pungent smell and I had an allergy attack that lasted for several minutes. And now I'm still afraid of getting lung cancer.
There were no warning signs on the matrix that there was radioactivity inside, it was written "do not disassemble".
I learned that indium is much more radioactive than other radioactive metals used in everyday life.

Please tell me how much indium it contains, how dangerous it is to inhale it, and what harm it does to a severe attack of allergies.

P.S. I use Google translate

 

[rjenkinsgb]

Just read the material you quote:

indium-115, which has a half-life of 4.41×1014 years, four orders of magnitude greater than the age of the Universe

The radiation level from that is effectively zero. You get infinitely more ionizing radiation from natural rocks like granite, and UV from the sun.

 

[v4000ds]

I was told on another forum that the more radioactive potassium-40, which is in the human body in large quantities. But indium worries me, because in a mixture with it there can be more radioactive isotopes. Indium is also toxic and allergic.

I want to extract indium from these films.
Indium oxide probably does not darken in air and retains reflectivity. I want to make a UV mirror. An unprotected silver or aluminum mirror darkens when exposed to air. The glass-covered mirror does not transmit ultraviolet light well.

I'm not good at googling.
Please tell me how much indium is contained in the LCD of Dell Latitude D520 laptop?

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I was told on another forum that the more radioactive potassium-40, which is in the human body in large quantities. But indium worries me, because in a mixture with it there can be more radioactive isotopes. Indium is also toxic and allergic.

I want to extract indium from these films.
Indium oxide probably does not darken in air and retains reflectivity. I want to make a UV mirror. An unprotected silver or aluminum mirror darkens when exposed to air. The glass-covered mirror does not transmit ultraviolet light well.

I'm not good at googling.
Please tell me how much indium is contained in the LCD of Dell Latitude D520 laptop?

Probably none, or as close to none as to make no difference - there's nothing hazardous in LCD panels (except perhaps traces of mercury in old CCFl ones?).

As you're obviously not a Chemist, I would suggest you keep well away from any kind of Chemistry related experiments.

 

[rjenkinsgb]

No idea!
However the bulk of the actual indium-containing substance is likely to be Indium-Tin oxide, which is a transparent conductor used to make the electrodes on the inside of the display, that control the liquid crystal material.

That likely exists in only microscopic quantities.

 

[v4000ds]

Recovering a rare metal from LCDs to avoid depleting key resource - American Chemical Society

American Chemical Society: Chemistry for Life.

www.acs.org

Many consumer electronics from laptops to tablets contain thin films of indium tin-oxide that act as transparent conductive coatings in the displays.

I may have been wrong
What does mean "coatings in the displays"?
Inside the package (with "do not touch" label) I found unusual mirror films with a pungent smell. Films separate from the glass matrix.
3 pieces.
The first film smeared the point light horizontally and strangely flipped the image like a prism
The second film smeared the point light vertically and strangely flipped the image like a prism
And third film did not smear the light, but in a strange way inverted the image like a prism
I just read not carefully, not knowing English ...
Films are contained inside the glass?

The most effective technique involved crushing and grinding LCD glass into particles less than 75 micrometers, or 0.003 inches, in size and bathing them in a sulfuric acid solution at 122 degrees Fahrenheit. These and other key parameters, the scientists say, could contribute to a closed-loop process of indium recovery that could allow the display industry to get indium from discarded electronics rather than using dwindling reserves.

Then what are the strange mirror films made of?

I want to extract indium from these films.
Indium oxide probably does not darken in air and retains reflectivity. I want to make a UV mirror. An unprotected silver or aluminum mirror darkens when exposed to air. The glass-covered mirror does not transmit ultraviolet light well.

I thought that indium tin-oxide conducts light, but it conducts current!

Sorry.

Then what are the strange mirror films made of?

 

[rjenkinsgb]

The transparent or semi mirrored layers are most likely acrylic or polyester based polarising layers.

The overall light control of an LCD is based on changing polarisation; the LCD material "twists" light polarisation depending on the voltage applied, making it transparent or opaque depending if the polarisation lines up with the external layers or is twisted 90' to it.

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

I thought that indium tin-oxide conducts light, but it conducts current!

ITO is photo-conductive. I used to deposit ITO using RF sputtering. It's basically a transparent electrical conductor. It can be greenish or yellowish. Indium wire, used it for soldering, will melt in your hand.