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Carbon (6 C) has 14 known isotopes, from 8 C to 20 C as well as 22 C, of which 12 C and 13 C are stable.The longest-lived radioisotope is 14 C, with a half-life of 5.70(3) × 10 3 years. . This is also the only carbon radioisotope found in nature, as trace quantities are formed cosmogenically by the reactio
Archaeological materials, such as bone, organic residues, hair, or sea shells, can serve as substrates for isotopic analysis. Carbon, nitrogen and zinc isotope ratios are used to investigate the diets of past people; these isotopic systems can be used with others, such as strontium or oxygen, to answer questions about population movements and cultural interactions, such as trade.
With the discovery of oxygen isotopes in 1929, a situation arose where chemists based their calculations on the average atomic mass (atomic weight) of oxygen whereas physicists used the mass of the predominant isotope of oxygen, oxygen-16. This discrepancy became undesired and a unification between the chemistry and physics was necessary. [13]
Carbon-12 (12 C) is the most abundant of the two stable isotopes of carbon (carbon-13 being the other), amounting to 98.93% of element carbon on Earth; [1] its abundance is due to the triple-alpha process by which it is created in stars.
Sulfur isotope ratios are almost always expressed as ratios relative to 32 S due to this major relative abundance (95.0%). Sulfur isotope fractionations are usually measured in terms of δ 34 S due to its higher abundance (4.25%) compared to the other stable isotopes of sulfur, though δ 33 S is also sometimes measured.
It contains a table of main isotopes and eventually the standard atomic weight. This template is reused in {{Infobox <element>}} as a child Infobox (|child=yes). As of Jan 2023, a 'Main isotope' is conforming MOS:MAINISOTOPE (under construction, see WP:ELEMENTS What is a "Main_isotope"?) Each isotope has its own row, with decay modes:
Isotope fractionation occurs during a phase transition, when the ratio of light to heavy isotopes in the involved molecules changes. When water vapor condenses (an equilibrium fractionation), the heavier water isotopes (18 O and 2 H) become enriched in the liquid phase while the lighter isotopes (16 O and 1 H) tend toward the vapor phase. [1]
Bulk carbon-13 for commercial use, e.g. in chemical synthesis, is enriched from its natural 1% abundance. Although carbon-13 can be separated from the major carbon-12 isotope via techniques such as thermal diffusion, chemical exchange, gas diffusion, and laser and cryogenic distillation, currently only cryogenic distillation of methane (boiling point −161.5°C) or carbon monoxide (b.p. − ...