How long do tritium vials glow for?

Tritium exit signs usually come in three brightness levels guaranteed for 10, 15, or 20 year useful life expectancies.

What is the lifetime of tritium?

Tritium is radioactive and has a half-life of about 12.5 years, which means that half of the radioactive atoms will decay naturally in that time. Although tritium can be a gas under controlled conditions, its most common form is liquid, because, like hydrogen, tritium reacts with oxygen to form water.

Does tritium ever stop glowing?

Since Tritium is radioactive, it will glow whether or not it receives any light exposure; however its ability to glow is limited by the radioactive half-life of the material itself. This means that as Tritium ages, its ability to glow will diminish until the point that it ceases to glow at all.

Are tritium vials safe?

These Tritium Glow Tubes are perfectly safe to handle as the beta radiation generated from the Tritium decay cannot pass through the glass wall of the vial. Incidentally, the collision of the beta particles with the glass does produce a very tiny amount of x-rays, but not enough to harm anything.

Where can I get tritium?

Tritium can be acquired in a variety of ways:

  • from asteroids in space.
  • crystalised form as a Tritium Hypercluster.
  • some Galactic Trade Terminals.
  • in a Freighter after purchasing one.

Does Rolex use tritium?

Rolex adopted Tritium as a safer alternative to Radium (another radioactive material); however since Tritium is significantly less radioactive than Radium, it only has a half-life of approximately 12.5 years.

Why did Rolex stop using tritium?

Whilst tritium is also radioactive, it has a much lower level of radiation. Tritium has good luminous characteristics and glows rather strong, but an issue is that it has a 12-year half-life (due to the Lowe level of radiation), which means it will stop glowing.