Technetium

An element 43 was invented in 1936 after long research and experiments. This element was named as Technetium. The symbol of technetium is Tc. The discovery made by Carlo Perrier and Emilio Segre in the university of Palermo laboratory, Italy.

In the process of finding missing elements form periodic table, many elements were not found due to natural decays. An element of atomic number 43 was discovered by the process of bombardment of molybdenum atom and deuterons with the help of accelerating device known as cyclotron. Molybdenum is the element of periodic table with atomic number 42. So this is first manmade chemical element in periodic table.

By resolving some difficulties the scientist found different isotopes of technetium which is differ in decay period of 90, 80 and 50 days. This results in two isotopes 95Tc and 97 Tc. In 1947 this element was named ‘technetos’ in Greek meaning as ‘artificial’. One isotope of technetium was isolated by Glenn T. Seaborg and named as Technetium-99m. The most famous isotope of technetium used in medical equipments and treatments.

Today technetium is produced with the help of molybdenum-98 and neutrons. In this reactionmolybdnum-98 converted into molybdenum-99 by catching neutron. The molybdenum-98 has half-life of 65.94 hours and after decay; it will convert into technetium-99 by the process of beta decay. Beta decay is a beta particle or electron or positron emitting procedure. Technetium has 4,200,000 years of half life and it forms ruthenium-98 by beta decay.

The main property of the technetium is radioactivity. This element is lightest radioactive element among all chemical elements. There 34 isotopes of the element technetium having the mass range 90 to 111. All isotopes are radioactive but technetium has only three isotopes which are long life as a radioactive isotope. These are 97Tc - has half life of 2.6x106 years, 98Tc – has half life of 4.2x106 years and 99Tc - has half life of 2.1x105­­­ years. Tc 99 is most useful isotope which is used in many medical radioactive treatment because then short timing of the half life Tc99, emitted gamma rays and ability of chemical bounding with biological active molecules.

The property of element is, this is artificial element, unstable and radioactive metal should store in closed environment. Technetium is not found human body. The uses of technetium are mostly in radioactive tracing machine, nuclear medicine, corrosion inhibitor as well as superconductors.