Radiochemistry is the chemistry of radioactive materials, where radioactive isotopes of elements are used to study the properties and chemical reactions of non-radioactive isotopes (often within radiochemistry the absence of radioactivity leads to a substance being described as being inactive as the isotopes are stable). Much of radiochemistry deals with the use of radioactivity to study ordinary chemical reactions. This is very different from radiation chemistry where the radiation levels are kept too low to influence the chemistry. Radiochemistry includes the study of both natural and man-made radioisotopes.
Main decay modes All radioisotopes are unstable isotopes of elements— that undergo nuclear decay and emit some form of radiation. The radiation emitted can be of several types including alpha, beta, gamma radiation, proton, and neutron emission along with neutrino and antiparticle emission decay pathways. 1. α (alpha) radiation—the emission of an alpha particle (which contains 2 protons and 2 neutrons) from an atomic nucleus. When this occurs, the atom's atomic mass will decrease by 4 units and the atomic number will decrease by 2. 2. β (beta) radiation—the transmutation of a neutron into an electron and a proton. After this happens, the electron is emitted from the nucleus into the electron cloud. 3. γ (gamma) radiation—the emission of electromagnetic energy (such as gamma rays) from the nucleus of an atom. This usually occurs during alpha or beta radioactive decay. These three types of radiation can be distinguished by their difference in penetrating power. Alpha can be stopped quite easily by a few centimetres of air or a piece of paper and is equivalent to a helium nucleus. Beta can be cut off by an aluminium sheet just a few millimetres thick and are electrons. Gamma is the most penetrating of the three and is a massless chargeless high-energy photon. Gamma radiation requires an appreciable amount of heavy metal radiation shielding (usually lead or barium-based) to reduce its intensity.
Activation analysis By neutron irradiation of objects, it is possible to induce radioactivity; this activation of stable isotopes to create radioisotopes is the basis of neutron activation analysis. A high-energy most interesting object which has been studied in this way is the hair of Napoleon's head, which has been examined for its arsenic content. A series of different experimental methods exist, these have been designed to enable the measurement of a range of different elements in different matrices. To reduce the effect of the matrix it is common to use the chemical extraction of the wanted element and/or to allow the radioactivity due to the matrix elements to decay before the measurement of the radioactivity. Since the matrix effect can be corrected by observing the decay spectrum, little or no sample preparation is required for some samples, making neutron activation analysis less susceptible to contamination. The effects of a series of different cooling times can be seen if a hypothetical sample that contains sodium, uranium, and cobalt in a 100:10:1 ratio was subjected to a very short pulse of thermal neutrons. The initial radioactivity would be dominated by the 24Na activity (half-life 15 h) but with increasing time the 239Np (half-life 2.4 d after formation from parent 239U with half-life 24 min) and finally the 60Co activity (5.3 yr) would predominate.
Biological and Medical applications One biological application is the study of DNA using radioactive phosphorus-32. In these experiments, stable phosphorus is replaced by the chemically identical radioactive 32P, and the resulting radioactivity is used in the analysis of the molecules and their behaviour. Another example is the work that was done on the methylation of elements such as sulfur, selenium, tellurium, and polonium by living organisms. It has been shown that bacteria can convert these elements into volatile compounds, it is thought that methylcobalamin (vitamin B12) alkylates these elements to create the dimethyls. It has been shown that a combination of Cobaloxime and inorganic polonium in sterile water forms a volatile polonium compound, while a control experiment that did not contain the cobalt compound did not form the volatile polonium compound. For the sulfur work, the isotope 35S was used, while for polonium 207Po was used. In some related work by the addition of 57Co to the bacterial culture, followed by isolation of the cobalamin from the bacteria (and the measurement of the radioactivity of the isolated cobalamin) it was shown that the bacteria convert available cobalt into methylcobalamin. In Nuclear Medicine PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scans are commonly used for diagnostic purposes, primarily in oncology and neurology. A radiative tracer, such as: FDG (Fluorodeoxyglucose) which is used in >90% of clinical PET scans, is injected intravenously into the patient and then taken to the PET scanner. The radioactive tracer releases radiation outward from the patient and the cameras in the machine interpret the radiation from the tracer. PET scan machines use solid state scintillation detection because of their high detection efficiency, NaI(Tl) crystals absorb the tracer's radiation and produce photons that get converted into an electrical signal for the machine, and later the diagnostic medical team to analyze.
Environmental Radiochemistry also includes the study of the behaviour of radioisotopes in the environment; for instance, a forest or grass fire can make radioisotopes mobile again. In these experiments, fires were started in the exclusion zone around Chernobyl and the radioactivity in the air downwind was measured. A vast number of processes can release radioactivity into the environment. For example, the action of cosmic rays on the air is responsible for the formation of radioisotopes (such as 14C and 32P), the decay of 226Ra forms 222Rn which is a gas which can diffuse through rocks before entering buildings and dissolve in water and thus enter drinking water In addition, human activities such as bomb tests, accidents, and normal releases from industry have resulted in the release of radioactivity.
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