Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The next group is the primordial radioactive nuclides. These have been measured to be radioactive, or decay products have been identified in natural samples (tellurium-128, barium-130). There are 35 of these (see these nuclides), of which 25 have half-lives longer than 10 13 years. With most of these 25, decay is difficult to observe and for ...
An example of electron emission (β − decay) is the decay of carbon-14 into nitrogen-14 with a half-life of about 5,730 years: 14 6 C → 14 7 N + e − + ν e. In this form of decay, the original element becomes a new chemical element in a process known as nuclear transmutation.
This is a list of radioactive nuclides (sometimes also called isotopes), ordered by half-life from shortest to longest, in seconds, minutes, hours, days and years. Current methods make it difficult to measure half-lives between approximately 10 −19 and 10 −10 seconds.
For three elements (indium, tellurium, and rhenium) a very long-lived radioactive primordial nuclide is more abundant than a stable nuclide. The longest-lived radionuclide known, 128 Te, has a half-life of 2.2 × 10 24 years: 1.6 × 10 14 times the age of the Universe. Only four of these 35 nuclides have half-lives shorter than, or equal to ...
For two of them, natural radioactivity was observed, and three others are predicted to be radioactive but their decays have not been observed, due to extremely long half-lives. The two natural radioactive isotopes are 113 Cd (beta decay, half-life is 8.04 × 10 15 years) and 116 Cd (two-neutrino double beta decay, half-life is 2.8 × 10 19 years).
Naturally occurring cobalt, Co, consists of a single stable isotope, 59 Co (thus, cobalt is a mononuclidic element). Twenty-eight radioisotopes have been characterized; the most stable are 60 Co with a half-life of 5.2714 years, 57 Co (271.811 days), 56 Co (77.236 days), and 58 Co (70.844 days).
Spontaneous fission (SF) is a form of radioactive decay in which a heavy atomic nucleus splits into two or more lighter nuclei. In contrast to induced fission, there is no inciting particle to trigger the decay; it is a purely probabilistic process.
Three isotopes, 225 Ac, 227 Ac and 228 Ac, were found in nature and the others were produced in the laboratory; only the three natural isotopes are used in applications. Actinium-225 is a member of the radioactive neptunium series; [60] it was first discovered in 1947 as a decay product of uranium-233 and