On the morning of July 2, 1956, an explosion involving scrap thorium occurred at the Sylvania Electric Products' Metallurgical Laboratory in Bayside, New York. Nine people were injured, some severely. One employee died on August 6, 1956. There were two explosions.
Sylvania was experimenting with large-scale production of thorium metal from thorium dioxide. Part of the process of shutting down this experiment was the reprocessing and burning of thorium metal powder sludges that went unprocessed during the experiment. It was during the incineration of this material that the explosion occurred.
At the time the metallurgical properties of thorium were not well understood.
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