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.

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?

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Ans: Astatine is an extremely radioactive element.

Source: TH