What is the importance of isotopes in various fields of life?

Isotopes of an element all have the same chemical behavior, but the unstable isotopes undergo spontaneous decay during which they emit radiation and achieve a stable state. This property of radioisotopes is useful in food preservation, archaeological dating of artifacts and medical diagnosis and treatment.

How are radioactive elements used in agriculture?

Radioisotopes were used in many range of application such as killing insects which damage the food grains by radiations, determining the function of fertilizers in different plants and increase the agricultural produce. Fruits, cereals, canned food and vegetables can be stored for longer periods by moderately exposing …

What are the uses of isotopes in industry?

Industrial tracers Radioisotopes are used by manufacturers as tracers to monitor fluid flow and filtration, detect leaks, and gauge engine wear and corrosion of process equipment. Small concentrations of short-lived isotopes can be detected whilst no residues remain in the environment.

What is an isotope give 2 Significance of isotopes?

Isotopes can be defined as the variants of chemical elements that possess the same number of protons and electrons, but a different number of neutrons. In other words, isotopes are variants of elements that differ in their nucleon numbers due to a difference in the total number of neutrons in their respective nuclei.

How are isotopes used for pest control?

Radioisotopes of Cobalt such as Cobalt-60, which is the most commonly used isotope in pest control, have been used as gamma-ray sources to sterilize pests such as fruit flies. They will compete for mating with fertile males but produce no offspring, thereby reducing the pest population.

Which field is the chosen isotope most useful?

Radioactive isotopes have many useful applications. In particular, they are central to the fields of nuclear medicine and radiotherapy. In nuclear medicine, tracer radioisotopes may be taken orally or be injected or inhaled into the body.

What are 3 uses of isotopes?

It is interesting to know that the isotopes of some elements have special properties and so we use them in various applications.

• Uranium-235 is used for nuclear fission and as a fuel in nuclear reactors.
• An isotope of cobalt is used in the treatment of cancer.
• An isotope of iodine is used in the treatment of goiter.

What are 2 examples of isotopes?

Examples of radioactive isotopes include carbon-14, tritium (hydrogen-3), chlorine-36, uranium-235, and uranium-238. Some isotopes are known to have extremely long half-lives (in the order of hundreds of millions of years). Such isotopes are commonly referred to as stable nuclides or stable isotopes.

What are the isotopes give example?

In other words, isotopes are variants of elements that differ in their nucleon numbers due to a difference in the total number of neutrons in their respective nuclei. For example, carbon-14, carbon-13, and carbon-12 are all isotopes of carbon.

How are isotopes used in Archaeology?

By measuring the ratios of different isotopes in bones or teeth and using scientific knowledge about how they occur in nature to trace them back to the sources that they came from, archaeologists can find out many things about an individual, such as what their diet was like and the environment they grew up in.

How do you sterilize insects?

Exposing the insects to ionizing radiation is the current method of choice, when it comes to sterilizing insects so they may no longer produce. Isotopic sources such as cobalt-60 or cesium-137 are used to produce gamma radiation for sterilizing the insects.