Emergency services said they were hampered by a lack of equipment and have called on the Commonwealth and other states to provide assistance.
The Department of Fire and Emergency Services has deployed teams with handheld radiation detection devices and metal detectors along 36 kilometers (22 miles) of a busy freight route to look for the 8 millimeters by 6 millimeters (0.31 inches by 0.24 inches) unit.
It is believed to have fallen off the back of a truck on a 1,400-kilometer (870-mile) journey from the Rio Tinto mine in Newman to the the Perth suburb of Malaga.