Saturday, November 28, 2009

How do the different isotopes of zinc behave differently to each other? What is the most commonly used isotope of zinc?

Zinc is an element on the periodic table with an atomic number of 30 (meaning there are 30 protons in the nucleus).  The isotopes of a particular element differ in the number of neutrons present in the nucleus.  There are numerous known isotopes of zinc.  Only five of them, however, are found in nature.  Almost half of all naturally occurring zinc is Zn-64 (the mass number is 64).  This means that this particular isotope of zinc contains 30 protons and 34 neutrons.  The four other naturally occurring isotopes are Zn-66, Zn-67, Zn-68, and Zn-70.  All of these are considered radioactively stable.  The other isotopes of zinc only really differ from one another in terms of nuclear stability, with half-lives ranging from hours to nanoseconds.

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