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21. Nuclear Chemistry
Rate of Radioactive Decay

21. Nuclear Chemistry

Rate of Radioactive Decay

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Textbook Question
In a cave in Oregon, archaeologists found bones, plant remains, and fossilized feces. DNA remaining in the feces indi-cates their human origin but not their age. To date the remains, the decay rate was measured and found to be 2.71 disinte-grations/min per gram of carbon. Currently living organisms have a decay rate of 15.3 disintegrations/min per gram of carbon, and the half-life of 14C is 5715 years. How old are the remains? (a) 1460 years (b) 9900 years (c) 14300 years (d) 18600 years
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Textbook Question
Iodine-131 is a convenient radioisotope to monitor thyroid activity in humans. It is a beta emitter with a half-life of 8.02 days. The thyroid is the only gland in the body that uses iodine. A person undergoing a test of thyroid activity drinks a solution of NaI, in which only a small fraction of the iodide is radioactive. (c) A normal thyroid will take up about 12% of the ingested iodide in a few hours. How long will it take for the radioactive iodide taken up and held by the thyroid to decay to 0.01% of the original amount?
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Textbook Question
The electronic systems on the New Horizons spacecraft, which launched on January 19, 2006, and reached its closest approach to Pluto on July 14, 2015, were powered by elec-tricity generated by heat. The heat came from the radioac-tive decay of 238Pu in the 11 kg of 238PuO2 fuel onboard. The generator provided 240 W when the spacecraft was launched. If the power output is directly proportional to the amount of 238Pu in the generator, what was the power output when the spacecraft reached Pluto? The half-life of 238Pu is 87.7 y.
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Textbook Question
A small sample of wood from an archaeological site in Clo-vis, New Mexico, was burned in O2 and the CO2 produced was bubbled through a solution of Ba(OH)2 to produce a precipitation of BaCO3. When the BaCO3 was collected by filtration, a 1.000 g sample was found to have a radioactivity of 4.0 x 10^-5 Bq. The half-life of 14C is 5715 y, and living organisms have a radioactivity due to 14C if 15.3 disintegrations/min per gram of carbon. If the analysis was carried out in 1960, what is the date of the Clovis site?
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Textbook Question
Imagine that you have a 0.007 50 M aqueous MgCl2 solu-tion, prepared so that it contains a small amount of radio-active 28Mg. The half-life of 28Mg is 20.91 h, and the initial activity of the MgCl2 solution is 0.112 mCi>mL. Assume that 20.00 mL of this MgCl2 solution is added to 15.00 mL of 0.012 50 M aqueous Na2CO3 solution and that the resultant precipitate is then removed by filtration to yield a clear filtrate. After a long break to go for a run, you find that the activity of the filtrate measured 2.40 h after begin-ning the experiment is 0.029 mCi>mL. What are the molar concentrations of Mg2+ and CO32- in the filtrate, and what is the solubility product constant of MgCO3?
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