Tritium sights and 'survival of the fittest'

[DoctorDawg]

Researching aftermarket sights, I was a little surprised to learn that tritium sights use vials of tritium gas which (judging from several posts here) can break and release this radioactive gas. Now there's no need for alarm here...on a one-to-ten scale of Things To Worry About, brief exposure to 50 millicuries of tritium gas scores a '1', tops, if it even moves the needle at all (unless Homeland Security does a wipe-test on you and discovers yer radioactive, in which case, in the immortal words of Ricky Ricardo, "Lucy, you got some 'splainin to do!"). Still, it occurred to me that this is a nice 'natural selection' factor...clumsy wannabe gunsmiths who are in the habit of breaking their customers' sights while installing them will end up inhaling lots of 50 millicurie whiffs of tritium (I can imagine your nose is pretty much right over the work when you're installing sights), and injesting several 50 mC doses of tritium via inhalation would most definitely be A Bad Thing. Among many other things, this might lead to offspring possessing curious numbers of fingers...which would sorta prevent those offspring from becoming clumsy wannabe gunsmiths themselves. Isn't it great how nature works?

Anyway, a quick question: can anyone tell me what chemical form the tritium is in? Is it truly tritium gas (chemical formula 'T2'), or maybe tritiated water vapor (T2O), or what? Just curious, really; the chemical form of a radioisotope can make a big difference in its potential health effects (for instance, T2O would go straight through ya, which is a good thing...like beer, you can't buy it, you can only rent it ).

[FirNaTine]

This is tritium gas, a radiocative isotope of hydrogen. It undergoes radioactive decay, and provides energy to a phosphorescent material which in turn releases visible light.

[chupacabrachus]

google it, man. You'll probably come up with formulas and everything.