Technetium Research Paper

Technetium has an atomic number is 43 so it has 43 protons and 55 neutrons. On periodic table, it’s located on Group 7, Period 5, and Block d. It has an atomic mass of 98. According to Aufbau Principle and Hund’s rule the full electron configuration of Technetium is 1s22s22p63s23d104s24p64d55s2 and condensed electron configuration of Technetium is [Kr] 4d55s2. First Ionization energy of Tc is 702 kJ mol 1 and second Ionization energy is always higher so it is 1470 kJ mol 1. (Winter, M) Technetium is solid at room temperature, therefore a great superconductor at temperatures of 11 K and below. It dissolves in nitric acid and concentrated sulfuric acid but doesn’t dissolve in hydrochloric acid (Technetium Element Facts).

Technetium is an important
As mentioned above it can diagnose many medical illness including detection of heart diseases, strokes and breast cancer. It can also prevent patient infections therefore very little or no harm to patients (Benefits and Problems of Radioisotopes). Since 99mTc has a half-life of 6.03 hours, it’s beneficial because it lasts long enough for doctors to get all the scans needed and it doesn’t stay in the body for a long period of time because it decays quickly (Garlow, 2012).

There are also some disadvantages because after 99mTc is used its waste requires disposal which can harm aquatic and terrestrial organism (Benefits and Problems of Radioisotopes). It can cause damage to health if not stored properly (Wagner, 2012). 99mTc has a short half life of 6.03 hours which makes storage difficult and transporting impossible. Therefore, it is shipped by pharmaceutical companies directly to local market using A 99mTc generator. It is a device that is used to take the metastable isotope 99mTc of technetium from 99Mo which has a half-life of 66 hours which is used to transport over long distances to hospitals. This provides shield for long distance transport to minimize extraction work (Wagner,