My watch list
my.chemeurope.com  
Login  

Isotopes of zinc



Naturally occurring Zinc (Zn) is composed of the 5 stable isotopes 64Zn, 66Zn, 67Zn, 68Zn, and 70Zn with 64Zn being the most abundant (48.6% natural abundance). Twenty-one radioisotopes have been characterised with the most abundant and stable being 65Zn with a half-life of 244.26 days, and 72Zn with a half-life of 46.5 hours. All of the remaining radioactive isotopes have half-lives that are less than 14 hours and the majority of these have half lives that are less than 1 second. This element also has 4 meta states.

Zinc has been proposed as a "salting" material for nuclear weapons (cobalt is another, better-known salting material). A jacket of isotopically enriched 64Zn, irradiated by the intense high-energy neutron flux from an exploding thermonuclear weapon, would transmute into the radioactive isotope Zn-65 with a half-life of 244 days and produce approximately 2.27 MeV of gamma radiation, significantly increasing the radioactivity of the weapon's fallout for several days. Such a weapon is not known to have ever been built, tested, or used.
Standard atomic mass: 65.409(4) u

Table

nuclide
symbol
Z(p) N(n)  
isotopic mass (u)
 
half-life nuclear
spin
representative
isotopic
composition
(mole fraction)
range of natural
variation
(mole fraction)
excitation energy
54Zn 30 24 53.99295(43)# 0+
55Zn 30 25 54.98398(27)# 20# ms [>1.6 µs] 5/2-#
56Zn 30 26 55.97238(28)# 36(10) ms 0+
57Zn 30 27 56.96479(11)# 38(4) ms 7/2-#
58Zn 30 28 57.95459(5) 84(9) ms 0+
59Zn 30 29 58.94926(4) 182.0(18) ms 3/2-
60Zn 30 30 59.941827(11) 2.38(5) min 0+
61Zn 30 31 60.939511(17) 89.1(2) s 3/2-
61m1Zn 88.4(1) keV <430 ms 1/2-
61m2Zn 418.10(15) keV 140(70) ms 3/2-
61m3Zn 756.02(18) keV <130 ms 5/2-
62Zn 30 32 61.934330(11) 9.186(13) h 0+
63Zn 30 33 62.9332116(17) 38.47(5) min 3/2-
64Zn 30 34 63.9291422(7) STABLE [>2.3E+18 a] 0+ 0.48268(321)
65Zn 30 35 64.9292410(7) 243.66(9) d 5/2-
65mZn 53.928(10) keV 1.6(6) µs (1/2)-
66Zn 30 36 65.9260334(10) STABLE 0+ 0.27975(77)
67Zn 30 37 66.9271273(10) STABLE 5/2- 0.04102(21)
68Zn 30 38 67.9248442(10) STABLE 0+ 0.19024(123)
69Zn 30 39 68.9265503(10) 56.4(9) min 1/2-
69mZn 438.636(18) keV 13.76(2) h 9/2+
70Zn 30 40 69.9253193(21) STABLE [>1.3E+16 a] 0+ 0.00631(9)
71Zn 30 41 70.927722(11) 2.45(10) min 1/2-
71mZn 157.7(13) keV 3.96(5) h 9/2+
72Zn 30 42 71.926858(7) 46.5(1) h 0+
73Zn 30 43 72.92978(4) 23.5(10) s (1/2)-
73m1Zn 195.5(2) keV 13.0(2) ms (5/2+)
73m2Zn 237.6(20) keV 5.8(8) s (7/2+)
74Zn 30 44 73.92946(5) 95.6(12) s 0+
75Zn 30 45 74.93294(8) 10.2(2) s (7/2+)#
76Zn 30 46 75.93329(9) 5.7(3) s 0+
77Zn 30 47 76.93696(13) 2.08(5) s (7/2+)#
77mZn 772.39(12) keV 1.05(10) s 1/2-#
78Zn 30 48 77.93844(10) 1.47(15) s 0+
78mZn 2673(1) keV 319(9) ns (8+)
79Zn 30 49 78.94265(28)# 0.995(19) s (9/2+)
80Zn 30 50 79.94434(18) 545(16) ms 0+
81Zn 30 51 80.95048(32)# 290(50) ms 5/2+#
82Zn 30 52 81.95442(54)# 100# ms [>300 ns] 0+
83Zn 30 53 82.96103(54)# 80# ms [>300 ns] 5/2+#

Notes

  • Values marked # are not purely derived from experimental data, but at least partly from systematic trends. Spins with weak assignment arguments are enclosed in parentheses.
  • Uncertainties are given in concise form in parentheses after the corresponding last digits. Uncertainty values denote one standard deviation, except isotopic composition and standard atomic mass from IUPAC which use expanded uncertainties.

References

  • Isotope masses from Ame2003 Atomic Mass Evaluation by G. Audi, A.H. Wapstra, C. Thibault, J. Blachot and O. Bersillon in Nuclear Physics A729 (2003).
  • Isotopic compositions and standard atomic masses from Atomic weights of the elements. Review 2000 (IUPAC Technical Report). Pure Appl. Chem. Vol. 75, No. 6, pp. 683-800, (2003) and Atomic Weights Revised (2005).
  • Half-life, spin, and isomer data selected from these sources. Editing notes on this article's talk page.
    • Audi, Bersillon, Blachot, Wapstra. The Nubase2003 evaluation of nuclear and decay properties, Nuc. Phys. A 729, pp. 3-128 (2003).
    • National Nuclear Data Center, Brookhaven National Laboratory. Information extracted from the NuDat 2.1 database (retrieved Sept. 2005).
    • David R. Lide (ed.), Norman E. Holden in CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 85th Edition, online version. CRC Press. Boca Raton, Florida (2005). Section 11, Table of the Isotopes.


Isotopes of copper Isotopes of zinc Isotopes of gallium
Index to isotope pages
 
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Isotopes_of_zinc". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.
Your browser is not current. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 does not support some functions on Chemie.DE