What are some uses of radioactive isotopes?
Radioactive isotopes have many useful applications. In medicine, for example, cobalt-60 is extensively employed as a radiation source to arrest the development of cancer. Other radioactive isotopes are used as tracers for diagnostic purposes as well as in research on metabolic processes.
How radioactive isotopes are used in food preservation?
Food irradiation is the process of exposing foodstuffs to gamma rays to kill bacteria that can cause food-borne disease, and to increase shelf-life. In addition to inhibiting spoilage, irradiation can delay ripening of fruits and vegetables to give them greater shelf-life.
What are examples of radioactive isotopes?
What are some commonly-used radioisotopes?
| Radioisotope | Half-life |
|---|---|
| Hydrogen-3 (tritium) | 12.32 years |
| Carbon-14 | 5,700 years |
| Chlorine-36 | 301,000 years |
| Lead-210 | 22.2 years |
What are the beneficial uses of radioactivity?
Today, to benefit humankind, radiation is used in medicine, academics, and industry, as well as for generating electricity. In addition, radiation has useful applications in such areas as agriculture, archaeology (carbon dating), space exploration, law enforcement, geology (including mining), and many others.
What type of radiation is used in agriculture?
Ionising radiation to induce mutations in plant breeding has been used for several decades, and some 3200 new crop varieties have been developed in this way. Gamma or neutron irradiation is often used in conjunction with other techniques to produce new genetic lines of root and tuber crops, cereals, and oil seed crops.
What is radiation in agriculture?
For example, radioisotopes and controlled radiation are used to improve food crops, preserve food, determine ground- water resources, sterilize medical supplies, analyse hormones, X-ray pipelines, control industrial processes and study environmental pollution.
How are radioisotopes used in the agricultural industry?
Uses of radioisotopes in agriculture Radioactive isotopes in agriculture are used to determine essential constituents intake from fertilizer and the same constituents from the soil. For example, we were given some superphosphate to the plants labeled with phosphorus-32 (a beta emitter).
How is radiation used in Food and Agriculture?
Radiation is also used to sterilise food packaging. In the Netherlands, for example, milk cartons are freed from bacteria by irradiation. Fertilisers are expensive and if not properly used can cause water pollution.
How are radioactive isotopes used in fertilizer?
Fertilizers labelled with radioactive isotopes such as phosphorus-32 or with stable isotopes such as nitrogen-15 provide a means of determining how much of the fertilizer is taken up by the plant and how much is lost to the environment.
What are the uses of radioactive isotopes in medicine?
It is used mainly in radiotherapy for cancer treatment or used as electromagnetic spectrum radiation in medicine. A radioactive isotope of iodine-131 uses in external radiation therapy for the treatment and diagnosis of thyroid gland disorders in the human body.