Chemistry Project Report on “Nuclear Chemistry”

Declaration

I, ____________ student of ___________________ is doing project report entitled “Nuclear

Chemistry” being submitted to ___________________is an original piece of work done by me.

(Signature)

Main Points : "Nuclear Chemistry", natural radioactivity, artificial radioactivity, induced

radioactivity, Cause of Radioactivity, Nature and characteristics of Radioactive Substances,
Alpha rays, Gamma rays, Beta rays, rate of radioactive disintegration, decay, Half Life Period,
nuclear fission, Nuclear Fusions Project on Nuclear Chemistry

NUCLEAR CHEMISTRY INTRODUCTION

In ordinary chemical combinations, only the electrons present in the Outermost
orbitals are involved i.e. they are transferred from one atom to the other atom remain
unaffected. However, there are certain phenomena in which the nucleus of the atom is involved.
“The branch of chemistry dealing with the phenomena involving the nuclei of the atoms is known
as NUCLEAR CHEMISTRY.

In fact, the only phenomena involving the nucleus of an atom is RADIOACTIVITY -

both natural and artificial.

NATURAL RADIOACTIVITY :

The phenomenon of spontaneous emission of certain kinds of radiations by some

elements is called radioactivity or natural radioactivity.

ARTIFICIAL OR INDUCED RADIOACTIVITY :

The phenomenon is which the artificial disintegration of a stable nucleus leads to

the formation of a radioactive isotope is called artificial radioactivity.

Cause of Radioactivity

It has been found that the nuclei of those atoms are stable whose ratio of neutrons
to protons (n/p ratio) lies in the range 1 to 1.5. If the number of neutrons is plotted against the
number of protons, the table nucleus lie in a well defined belt, called stability belt as shown in
Fig. the nuclei with atomic number upto 20 have n/p ratio close to 1. The nuclei with n/p ratio
lying above or below the stability particles so that their n/p ratio falls within the stability belt. Loss
of particle (2p and 2n) increases the n/p ratio where as loss of particles increases the number
of protons and hence decreases the n/p ratio.

Nature and characteristics of Radioactive Substances

It is observed that applying the field, the rays emitted from the radioactive
substances are separated into three types called rays.

The rays are deflected in a direction which shows that they carry positive charges
the rays are deflected in the opposite direction and the rays are not deflected at all showing
that they carry no charge.

PROPERTIES OF a RAYS :

(i) The direction of deflection of the rays in the electric and magnetic field show that they carry
a positive charge. It is found that each particle carries two units of positive charges and has
mass nearly four times that of hydrogen atom.

(ii) The velocity of rays is found to be nearly 1/10 the 1/20 of that of light, depending upon the
nature of source.

(iii) a rays ionize the gas through which they pass.

(iv) a rays have low penetrating power. They can penetrate through air only to a distance of
about 7 cm.

(v) a rays affect a photographic plate and produce luminescence when they strike a line
sulphide screen.

PROPERTIES OF b RAYS

(i) The direction of deflection of b rays in the electric and magnetic fields shows that they
carry negative charge. These particles possess the same charge and mass as that of the
electrons.

(ii) The velocity of b rays depends upon the nature of the source. The speed of b particles
varies from 3% to 99% of that of light i.e. in same cases it approaches the velocity of light.
(iii) The ionizing power of b particles is about 1/100th of that of a particles.

(iv) Their penetrating power is about 100 times greater than that of a rays.

(v) Like rays, b rays affect a photographic plate and the effect is much higher. However, there
is no significant effect on a zinc sulphide screen become of their lower kinetic energy.

PROPERTIES OF g RAYS

(i) They are not deflected in the electric and magnetic fields showing these by that they do not
carry any charge.

(ii) They travel with the same velocity as that of light.

(iii) As they do not have any mass, their ionizing power is very poor.

(iv) Their penetrating power is about 100 times more than that of b rays. Thus they can
penetrate through lead sheets as thick as 150 mm.

(v) g rays have very little effect on the photographic plates or zinc. sulphide screen.

RATE OF RADIOACTIVE

DISINTEGRATION OR DECAY

The rate of disintegration depends only upon the nature of the radioactive element
and the radioactive disintegration follows first order kinetics and hence the expression for the
rate constant (g).

Where “No is the number of the atoms taken initially.

and “N” is the number of atoms present at any instant of time.

The equation is also written as :

Where a is the amount of the radioactive substance initially taken and a-x is the amount present
at time t.

HALF LIFE PERIOD :

 The half-life period of radioactive element is the time in which half of the original
substance disintegrate.

where g is disintegration constant.

NUCLEAR FISSION

The splitting of a heavy atom like that of uranium - 235 into a number of fragments
of much smaller mass by suitable bombardment of huge amount of energy is called NUCLEAR
FISSION.

e.g. Huge amount of energy.

Nuclear Fusions

Nuclear fusion is defined as a process in which lighter nuclei fuse together to form a
heavier nucleus.

H11 + H11 ----> H12 + e10

Deuterium Position