Barium-137m Half Life

Introduction

The purpose of the experiment was to conclude the half-life of Barium-137m. Half-lives are the time required for half of the remaining radioisotope to decompose into another element or becoming stable by releasing gamma-rays. Half-lives happen when an element is excited or in a meta-state (gamma), has too many neutrons (beta negative) or protons (beta positive), or has too many nucleons (alpha). To determine the half-life, arrange the formula of the number of half-lives that have elapsed to make the half-life the subject in the equation.

n=T/(t)1/2 → (t)1/2=T/n

where n is the number of half-lives that elapsed, T is the amount of time the radioisotope has decayed and (t)1/2 is the half-life of the nuclei, this is to determine the half-life of the radioisotope.

Barium-137m releases gamma rays, therefore, the nuclear decay equation will be

Barium-137m → Barium-137 + (Y)

Where (Y) will have no charge or mass.

The radiation emitted is gamma and has ionize radiation

This margin of error could have been a result of not immediately recording when the radioactive substance was placed onto the planchet and restarting the recording multiple times. Basic steps of procedure could have avoided this as there were missing instruction sheets within the group. However, the graph was only approximating the half-life and does not perfectly indicate the time of the half life, but according to results the amount of Bq suddenly increases or decreases, this could be due to either the amounts of background radiation being interacted with the tube, or not stopping the recording in perfect sequence or perhaps both. This could have been prevented if there were less background radiation by providing larger spaces and if the recordings were timed accurately by being operated by