What are the characteristics of astatine?
Characteristics: Astatine is highly radioactive and is only available in tiny quantities. Its properties are inferred from its position in the periodic table and by studying its chemistry in extremely dilute solutions. Like the other halogens, astatine would be expected to form salts with metals such as sodium.
What is the main use of astatine?
As astatine behaves similarly as iodine, it gets secreted in the thyroid gland. Hence it is used for treating diseases related to the thyroid. The isotope called Astatine-211 is utilized in the process of radiotherapy. It is also employed in the treatment of cancer as it is known to destroy cancer-causing cells.
How is astatine prepared?
Production. Astatine is formed by bombarding bismuth isotopes with alpha-particles. The resulting astatine is short-lived, with a half-life of just over 7 hours and hence it is necessary to prevent it from being evaporated by cooling the bismuth target during irradiation.
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What are the characteristics of the element astatine?
Characteristics. Astatine is an extremely radioactive element; all its isotopes have short half-lives of 8.1 hours or less, decaying into other astatine isotopes, bismuth, polonium or radon. Most of its isotopes are very unstable with half-lives of one second or less. Of the first 101 elements in the periodic table,…
Who was the first person to make astatine?
Astatine was first produced in 1940 by Dale Corson, Kenneth MacKenzie, and Emilio Segrè at the University of California by bombarding bismuth with alpha particles.
How is astatine prepared according to the general equation?
Astatine is usually prepared according to the general equation: which indicates that bismuth-209 takes up one alpha particle and emits x neutrons to form an isotope of astatine, whose atomic weight depends on the number of neutrons lost. Metallic bismuth may be used as a target material.
What happens when astatine is dissolved in water?
Astatine can also react with hydrogen to form hydrogen astatide, which when dissolved in water, forms hydroastatic acid. Astatine is the least reactive of the halogens and exhibits the most metallic properties of the halogen group.