Astatine

Astatine Latest News

Recently, an international collaboration led by researchers at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, detected and measured the half-life of the heaviest proton emitter 188At (astatine) isotope.

About Astatine

• It is a rare and highly radioactive element with atomic number 85.
• It is part of the halogen group (Group 17) in the periodic table, which also includes fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and iodine. Unlike the other halogens, astatine has no stable isotopes.

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Features of Astatine

• It’s probably a dark-colored solid at room temperature and pressure, but there is too little of it to know for sure. Due to its extreme radioactivity, it has a blue glow from ionizing air. All of its isotopes are radioactive.
• It occurs naturally as a decay product, but has a short half-life.
• It has 41 known isotopes ranging from mass number 188 and 190-229, all of which are radioactive.
• When the 188-astatine emits the proton, it becomes 187-polonium isotope, which has a half-life of only 1.4 milliseconds. The 187-polonium isotope then decays via alpha decay into 183-lead and so on, until it reaches a stable nucleus.
• It likely forms compounds similar to iodine but exhibits more metallic characteristics. 
• Astatine’s chemical properties most closely resemble those of iodine.

Astatine FAQs

Q1: What is astatine used for?

Ans: It is mainly used for research. It is also used as a radioactive tracer and a treatment for thyroid cancer.

Q2: What is special about astatine?

Ans: Astatine is an extremely radioactive element.

Source: TH