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This chain of decay was later shown to have the mass number 99, and (...) the 6.6-h activity acquired the designation ‘technetium-99m. Later in 1940, Emilio Segrè and Chien-Shiung Wu published experimental results of an analysis of fission products of uranium-235, including molybdenum-99, and detected the presence of an isomer of element 43 ...
The metastable technetium-99m (99m Tc) is a short-lived (half-life about 6 hours) nuclear isomer used in nuclear medicine, produced from molybdenum-99. It decays by isomeric transition to technetium-99, a desirable characteristic, since the very long half-life and type of decay of technetium-99 imposes little further radiation burden on the body.
For technetium-98 and heavier isotopes, the primary mode is beta emission (the emission of an electron or positron), producing ruthenium (Z = 44), with the exception that technetium-100 can decay both by beta emission and electron capture. [59] [60] Technetium also has numerous nuclear isomers, which are isotopes with one or more excited nucleons.
The Bateman equation predicts the relative quantities of all the isotopes that compose a given decay chain once that decay chain has proceeded long enough for some of its daughter products to have reached the stable (i.e., nonradioactive) end of the chain. A decay chain that has reached this state, which may require billions of years, is said ...
Beta decay of fission products of mass 95–98 stops at the stable isotopes of molybdenum of those masses and does not reach technetium. For mass 100 and greater, the technetium isotopes of those masses are very short-lived and quickly beta decay to isotopes of ruthenium. Therefore, the technetium in spent nuclear fuel is practically all 99 Tc.
Molybdenum-99 is produced commercially by intense neutron-bombardment of a highly purified uranium-235 target, followed rapidly by extraction. [8] It is used as a parent radioisotope in technetium-99m generators to produce the even shorter-lived daughter isotope technetium-99m, which is used in approximately 40 million medical procedures annually.
Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is considered radioactive. Three of the most common types of decay are alpha, beta, and gamma decay.
Technetium-99 is also produced as a waste product in nuclear medicine from Technetium-99m, a nuclear isomer that decays to its ground state which has no further use. Due to the decay product of 100 Tc (the result of 99