Unstable Chemistry

[ALine]

A new concept I have come up with is called "unstable chemistry" in which you transmute chemical elements from one element to another by using radioactive decay to either increase an atom's proton number or decrease an atom's proton number.

[exchemist]

1 hour ago, ALine said:

A new concept I have come up with is called "unstable chemistry" in which you transmute chemical elements from one element to another by using radioactive decay to either increase an atom's proton number or decrease an atom's proton number.

That’s not chemistry, though. These are nuclear reactions, which belong to physics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_transmutation

It’s not exactly a new concept, as you can see.

[studiot]

Just now, ALine said:

A new concept I have come up with is called "unstable chemistry" in which you transmute chemical elements from one element to another by using radioactive decay to either increase an atom's proton number or decrease an atom's proton number.

Start here to understand fusion = increase an atom's proton number  ;  fission = decrease an atom's proton number.

 

Only fission uses radioactive decay for this.

https://www.orano.group/en/unpacking-nuclear/nuclear-fission-and-nuclear-fusion-what-you-should-know

 

FUSION

 

 

FISSION

[ALine]

1 minute ago, exchemist said:

That’s not chemistry, though. These are nuclear reactions, which belong to physics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_transmutation

It’s not exactly a new concept, as you can see.

Thanks for that. Did not realize that it was already popularized.

2 minutes ago, studiot said:

Start here to understand fusion = increase an atom's proton number  ;  fission = decrease an atom's proton number.

 

Only fission uses radioactive decay for this.

I thought there were other methods to increase and decrease the proton number. Thus changing the element?

[studiot]

Note also that strictly the result of both processes is a new atom or atoms and the original atom(s) are used up in the process.

 

Edited December 31, 2024 by studiot

[swansont]

18 minutes ago, ALine said:

I thought there were other methods to increase and decrease the proton number. Thus changing the element?

You can absorb protons (particle capture), you can have a particle strike a nucleus and knock a proton out (particle ejection), you can have a neutron turn into a proton or proton turn into a neutron (beta decay and electron capture) and fission (whether induced or a spontaneous decay)

[John Cuthber]

You can do chemistry this way but it is horribly inefficient.

It's difficult to maker perbromates (and amusing to look at old books "explaining" why they are impossible)
One way to do it was to make a selenate with the right isotope of selenium, and wait for it to decay.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perbromate#Synthesis

[studiot]

Just now, ALine said:

A new concept I have come up with is called "unstable chemistry" in which you transmute chemical elements from one element to another by using radioactive decay to either increase an atom's proton number or decrease an atom's proton number.

If you are looking further into these matters, it would be a good idea to reconsider the phrasing of your question.

What you you mean by "... using radioactive decay..."  ?

Do you mean using radioactive decay of some atom as a cause of the transmutation of itself  ?

Or are you including radioactive decay of something else to provide radiation as the cause of the decay of some atom that is normally stable ?

 

Thinking about radiation itself is also fruitfull.

Radiation comes from to radiate or to spread out in many directions.

Clearly when there are only a finite number of paticles radiating, they cannot go in all directions.

So studying the pattern of spread is informative.