Half-life, 1. Radioactive decay is a random and spontaneous process.

All the unstable nuclei do not decay at the same time. It is not possible to predict when a particular nucleus is going to decay. The nuclei will decay at different times, some decay earlier while others decay at much later time. Therefore, the number of unstable nuclei that have not decayed decreases with time. The half-life, of a radioactive sample is the time taken for half of the radioactive nuclei to decay from its original number. The half-life of a particular radioactive nuclide is constant because a. radioactive decay is a random process b. the number of nuclei in a radioactive sample is very large. Thallium-210 has a half-life of 1.3 minutes. This means that 16 g of thallium takes 1.3 minutes to decay to 8 g of thallium. The time taken for a further decay to 4 g of thallium is also 1.3 minutes. Some radioactive nuclides have very short half-lives while others have very long half-lives. Table below gives the half-lives of some radioactive nuclides. Radioactive Nuclide notation Half-life nuclide Boron-12 20.2 miliseconds Nitrogen-13 9.96 minutes Sodium-24 15.0 hours Radon-222 3.82 days Cobalt-60 5.27 years Radium-228 1600 years Uranium-238 4468 million years

2. 3. 4.

Example 3 A sample of silicon-31 of mass 120 g has a half-life of 2.62 g hours. a. What is the fraction of the sample that has not decayed after 7.86 hours? b. What is the mass of the silicon-31 that has not decayed after this period of time? Solution a. 7.86 hours = half-lives = 3 half-lives 1 After 7.86 hours, the fraction that has not decayed is b. =

5.

Mass of the silicon-31 that has not decayed

6.

x 120

= 15 g *Shorter way to find the fraction of undecayed substance = substance = where n is the number of half-lives. For instance, after 3 half-lives, the fraction of undecayed

7. 8.

Example 1 Krypton-89 has a half-life of 3.2 minutes. A radioactive sample contains 128 g of krypton-89. Determine the mass of krypton-89 that has decayed and that has not decayed after 9.6 minutes. Solution The mass of krypton-89 that has not decayed will be halved every 3.2 minutes. 9.6 minutes =3

The decay process is as follows: 128 g 64 g 32 g 16 g *Notes* represents one After 9.6 minutes, 16 g of krypton-89 has not decayed and 112 g has decayed. Example 2 The radioactive atoms in a substance decay to become stable atoms. It was found that after 488 s, 93.75% of the atoms have decayed. What is the half-life of the substance? Solution The percentage of undecayed atoms = 100 93.75 = 6.25% Let the half- life be T represented by an 100% 50% 25% 12.5% 6.25% 4T = 488s So, T = 122s ,