When you hear the word radiation, I'm sure the first thing to come up in your minds is......
"This guy?"
Um, yeah? But that's not what I'm expecting from you. This is a radioactive alien guy from Ben 10. I was thinking something more like.....
.....this. Yes, this is an image of a victim of the Chernobyl disaster, once again, in Russia. It's because of a nuclear power plant accident which caused the Chernobyl residents to suffer from radiation poisoning. So now I guess you think that radiation and nuclear chemistry is something dangerous and complicated. Well not really, after all, this is just an introduction as the title states. So, what is nuclear chemistry?
Nuclear Chemistry is simply a branch of chemistry which deals with radioactivity, nuclear processes and nuclear properties. So it focuses on radiation itself.
Radiation is a process in which energetic particles or waves travel through a medium or space. There are two types of radiation: Ionizing and Non-ionizing but we'll just focus on Ionizing radiation.
Radiation with sufficiently high energy can ionize atoms. Most often, this occurs when an electron is stripped (or 'knocked out') from an electron shell, which leaves the atom with a net positive charge. Because cells are made of atoms, this ionization can result in cancer. An individual cell is made of trillions of atoms. The probability of ionizing radiation causing cancer is dependent upon the dose rate of the radiation and the sensitivity of the organism being irradiated. Ionizing radiation involves three processes: Alpha and Beta Decal, and Gamma Ray or Gamma Decay.
In Alpha Decay, 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:
An alpha particle is the same as a helium-4 nucleus, and both mass number and atomic number are the same.
Now in Beta Decay, beta particle (an electron or a positron) is emitted. In the case of electron emission, it is referred to as beta minus (β−), while in the case of a positron emission as beta plus (β+).
while in β+ decay, energy is used to convert a proton into a neutron, a positron (e+).
Gamma radiation, also known as gamma rays (denoted as γ), is electromagnetic radiation of high frequency (very short wavelength).
The image below is an example of radioactive decay involving alpha and beta decay in Uranium 238.
So how dangerous is radiation? Too much exposure in radiation could result to radiation poisoning. A dose of radiation from 6 sieverts (a unit for radiation) or more could be lethal. In fact, you're exposed to radiation even inside your own home but don't worry, the amount of radiation there is too little to cause any effects on your body.
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