Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
All other potassium isotopes have half-lives under a day, most under a minute. The least stable is 31 K, a three-proton emitter discovered in 2019; its half-life was measured to be shorter than 10 picoseconds. [5] [6] Stable potassium isotopes have been used for several nutrient cycling studies since potassium is a macronutrient required for ...
The darker more stable isotope region departs from the line of protons (Z) = neutrons (N), as the element number Z becomes larger. This is a list of chemical elements by the stability of their isotopes. Of the first 82 elements in the periodic table, 80 have isotopes considered to be stable. [1] Overall, there are 251 known stable isotopes in ...
The only stable nuclides having an odd number of protons and an odd number of neutrons are hydrogen-2, lithium-6, boron-10, nitrogen-14 and (observationally) tantalum-180m. This is because the mass–energy of such atoms is usually higher than that of their neighbors on the same isobaric chain, so most of them are unstable to beta decay .
Conversely, of the 251 known stable nuclides, only five have both an odd number of protons and odd number of neutrons: hydrogen-2 , lithium-6, boron-10, nitrogen-14, and tantalum-180m. Also, only four naturally occurring, radioactive odd–odd nuclides have a half-life >10 9 years: potassium-40, vanadium-50, lanthanum-138, and lutetium-176.
A nuclide is a species of an atom with a specific number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus, for example, carbon-13 with 6 protons and 7 neutrons. The nuclide concept (referring to individual nuclear species) emphasizes nuclear properties over chemical properties, whereas the isotope concept (grouping all atoms of each element) emphasizes chemical over nuclear.
[36] [37] [46] [47] Although the production of potassium and sodium metal should have shown that both are elements, it took some time before this view was universally accepted. [37] Because of the sensitivity of potassium to water and air, air-free techniques are normally employed for handling the element.
Potassium-40 (40 K) is a long lived and the main naturally occurring radioactive isotope of potassium. Its half-life is 1.25 billion years. It makes up about 0.012% (120 ppm ) of natural potassium.
For example, carbon, with atomic number 6, has an abundant isotope carbon-12 with 6 neutrons and a rare isotope carbon-13 with 7 neutrons. Some elements occur in nature with only one stable isotope, such as fluorine. Other elements occur with many stable isotopes, such as tin with ten stable isotopes, or with no stable isotope, such as technetium.