uses of radioactivity

All isotopes of a substance have the same chemical properties and behave in an identical manner. The advantage of a radioisotope is that its position can be detected very easily by the radiation which it emits. It has wide applications in various fields lik..

Radioactive Dating - All radioactive decays follow first order kinetics. Therefore, the half-life of a radioactive element is independent of the amount of sample. With the help of half-life values of a suitable radioisotope of an element, which is present in a rock, or..

Contamination of radioactive substances such as wastes of uranium and thorium can be carried into water from nuclear power plants, during their mining and refining processes. Scientific and medical institutions, which utilize radioactive materials can also contaminate water bod..

Waste products from nuclear power stations etc. are becoming a serious problem. They should be put where the radiation can do no harm. Unfortunately, there is no way of stopping a radioactive nucleus from emitting radiation. Nuclear energy has some advantages over fossil fuel such as coal..

Radioisotopes find numerous uses in different areas such as medicine, chemistry, biology, archaeology, agriculture, industry and engineeri..

1. It is used for water and gas pipes. 2. It is used for the plates of lead-acid accumulators (batteries). 3. As a screen from radioactive rays. 4. In alloys such as type metal, solder, etc. 5. In bullets. 6. To prepare lead tetraethyl, (C 2 H 4 )Pb which is used..

Uses of Sulphur, Selenium and Tellurium - (i) Most of the sulphur produced is used for the manufacture of sulphuric acid and other industrially important sulphur compounds. (ii) Sulphur is used to prepare large number of medicines (Sulpha drugs) and can be used..

Radioisotopes are frequently used as tracers or tagged atoms in various fields. In tracer technique, a radioactive isotope is added to the reactants and its movement is studied by measuring radioactivity in different par..

(i) Radioactive dating This gives us an approximate age of the rock or material containing the radioactive atoms. For e.g., A measurement of a fraction of uranium atom which have decayed into lead (by knowing the half life of uranium) tells us how old the rock is. (ii) Radiat..

You have learnt in the earlier chapters that flow of electrons constitutes an electric current and current can be generated from a battery or a generator. Scientists later discovered that there are many other ways of producing the stream of electrons. This knowledge has led to further developments ..