Nuclear chemistry

Nucleus, its properties, radioactive

reactions,structure

What is nuclear chemistry ?
It is a branch of chemistry dealing with
radioactivity, nuclear processes and structure.
It also includes nuclear binding energies and
nuclei sub atomic particle
It includes biological effects of this radiation
chemistry on living beings at a molecular level
Usage in medical applications i.e radioactive
therapy and nmr spectroscopy in organic and
inorganic fields for structure determination.

History or discovery of nucleus
In 1911 Ernest Rutherford proposed that the
positive charge of the atom was densely
concentrated at the center of the atom and it
was responsible for most of the mass of the
atom. He with Hans Greiger and Ernest
Marsden conducted the famous gold foil
experiment.
in 1930 dimitri ivanekyo proposed the first
proton-neutron model of nucleus.

Gold foil experiment
This was performed by Rutherford and his colleagues, Ernest
marsden ,greiger
He used an energetic alpha particle and fired them through a thin
gold foil and they were deflected as they were passed through the
gold foil.
He observed that most particles were deflected by a small angle
.he also found that large deflections were there for the particles
that came too close to the nucleus and got deflected by large
angles.
He concluded that the positive charge of the atom must be
concentrated in the centre of the atom.
He concluded that the size of the nucleus must be smaller than of
the atom by a factor of 10^4.
He finally concluded that most of the atom is an empty space.
Nuclear structure

They consists of protons and neutrons.they are bind together by a
strong force called nuclear force. this force is of short range and
equal to 10-15 m .this means the attractive force between nucleon
pairs drops to zero for nucleon separations greater than certain
critical value.
In lighter nucleus the no.of protons is equal to no.of neutrons and
hence we get a stable nuclei with only nuclear force acting as a
operating force.
whereas in heavier atoms we have more neutrons in comparision to
protons .this results in coloumbic repulsion effect.this is because a
nucleon will interact with only a small number of its neighbours
through that force and the energy tied up with strong bond
increases. also the energy tied up in columbic bond increases and
protons start interacting with other protons in the system.
Subatomic particles
In order to understand the structure we need to know some particles like
leptons, mesons and baryons .
leptons are the lightest particles including the electron(mec^2=0.511
Mev).they only interact with weak electromagnetic interactions. they have
no internal structure and are not composed of other small particles. they
are the true fundamental particles with no finite dimensions .they all have
a spin of .eg:electrons,tau particles and their respective neutrinos.
Mesons they are the intermediate perticles having mc^2=140 Mev . They
are strongly interacting particles having an integral spin.they decay
through strong ,weak,electromagnetic interactions .eg :pions ,hadrons.
they composed of one quark and antiquark bound together by strong
interaction.
Baryons are the heaviest of all particles having e=450 Mev .they are
strongly interacting having half integral spins(1/2, 3/2, 5/2).the family
members are neutrons and protons. A baryon is made up of three quarks.

Nuclear spin and magnetism
Nuclei like atoms have an intrinsic angular
momentum whose
What are quarks?
A quark is an elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of
matter. quarks are never found in isolation they are only found within
hadrons, baryons or mesons.
They are actually six types of quarks . they are strange, up, down, charm
and bottom .up and down quarks have the lowest masses of all quarks.
the heavier quarks change into up and down quarks through particle
decay. because of their stability they are found in most abundant in the
universe.
Every quark has an antiquark also which is opposite in sign and equal in
magnitude.
Its difficult to isolate a quark as it might take perhaps infinite energy to
separate them even to a distance of a nucleon.actually when we try to
separate two quarks they form a quark and antiquark pair which then
combines to form a meson.paradoxically inside a nucleon or meson a
quark exist as a free particle and the force between two quarks inside a
nucleus approaches almost zero.
Quark model
It was suggested independently by murray gellmann and george zweig that
subatomic particles like mesons and baryons are composed of more set of
fundamental particles called quarks.
The quarks listed at that time were up(u),down(d),strange (s) along with
the antiparticles i.e the antiquarks ,,.
The quarks have fractional electric charges (equal to elementary charge of
electron) i.e +2/3 for the u quark,-1/3 for the d and s quark.
The quarks have fractional baryon number i.e 1/3. every baryon has
baryon number equal to B=1(baryons),B=-1(antibaryons),B=0(non
baryons).
All quarks have a spin value of which means according to quantum
mechanics combination of two quarks can have either have a spin value of
s=0 or 1.
According to this model baryons are composed of three quarks while
mesons are made up of two quarks.
Reactions of the nucleus
Alpha decay it is the radioactive decay of the nucleus
in which alpha particles and other particles are emitted
from the nucleus.
Beta decay - a nucleus that decays spontaneously by
emitting an electron(positive or negative ) is said to
undergo beta decay.
Gamma decay this occurs after the , decay when
the daughter nucleus is in an excited state . It can then
move to a lower energy state by emitting a gamma ray
photon, in the same way that an atomic electron can
jump to a lower energy state by emitting a light ray
photon.

radioactivity
Radiation was first discovered by Henri Becquerrel
when he found that the piece of uranium he was
working with had a special property of turning his
photographic plate into black.
It was pierre and marie curie who isolated radioactive
elements and discussed radioactivity significantly.
Radioactivity is the process by which an unstable atom
or nucleus loses energy by emitting particles of ionising
radiation.the kind of emmissions are ,, decay.
Alpha decay
Alpha decay, or -decay, is a type of radioactive decay in which an atomic nucleus emits an alpha
particle and thereby transforms (or 'decays') into an atom with a mass number 4 less and atomic
number 2 less. For example, uranium-238 decaying through -particle emission to form thorium-
234can be expressed as
Because an alpha particle is the same as the nucleus of a helium-4 atom - consisting of
two protons and two neutrons and thus having mass number4 and atomic number 2 - this can also
be written as:
Notice how, on either side of the nuclear equation, both the mass number and the atomic number
are conserved: the mass number is 238 on the right side and (234 + 4) on the left side, and the
atomic number is 92 on the right side and (90 + 2) on the left side.
The alpha particle also has a charge +2, but the charge is usually not written in nuclear equations,
which describe nuclear reactions without considering the electrons. This convention is not meant
to imply that the nuclei necessarily occur in neutral atoms. Alpha decay typically occurs in the
heaviest nuclides. In theory it can occur only in nuclei somewhat heavier than nickel (element 28),
where overall binding energy per nucleon is no longer a minimum, and the nuclides are therefore
unstable toward spontaneous fission-type processes. In practice, this mode of decay has only been
observed in nuclides considerably heavier than nickel, with the lightest known alpha emitter being
the lightest isotopes (mass numbers 106110) of tellurium (element 52)
Beta decay
In this decay electrons are emitted as particles .there
are two types of decay : negative decay and
positive decay.
1.In positive decay ,a positron is emitted which is an
antiparticle of an electron. in this a proton decays into
a neutron and a positron and a neutrino is released for
conservation of momentum. The reaction is
P n + 1+
2.In negative decay a neutron decays into an electron
and becomes into a proton.it also releases an
antineutrino. the reaction of calcium undergoing
decay to give scandium is 20Ca -1 + Sc +




Gamma decay
Gamma rays from radioactive gamma decay are produced
alongside other forms of radiation such as alpha or beta,
and are produced after the other types of decay occur. The
mechanism is that when a nucleus emits an or particle,
the daughter nucleus is usually left in an excited state. It
can then move to a lower energy state by emitting a
gamma ray photon, in the same way that an atomic
electron can jump to a lower energy state by emitting a
light ray photon. Emission of a gamma ray from an excited
nuclear state typically requires only 10
12
seconds, and is
thus nearly instantaneous. Gamma decay from excited
states may also follow nuclear reactions such as neutron
capture, nuclear fission, or nuclear fusion.
Reactions are

Nuclear models
1. The collective model: this model wsa developed by Neils Bohr to
explain nuclear fission. here nucleus is treated as a body
analogous to a oil drop.in this the equilibrium shape of the liquid
drop is determined by the interactions of its molecules and
similarly the equilibrium shape of the nucleus is determined by
the interaction among its nucleons. a nucleus can absorb energy
by the entire nucleus rotating about its axis or vibrating along its
equilibrium shape.the expression of the energy is given by
2. The independent particle model :it states that each nucleon can
be assigned well defined states similar to the states of electrons in
a atom .like electrons ,nucleons arrange themselves into shells
with well defined quantum numbers. when a shell is filled the
nucleus obtained is of unusually high stability.
scope in this field

Nuclear fiission and fusion

Summary