What is Technetium atom?

     

Technetium is a chemical element with the symbol Tc and atomic number 43.   It is the lightest element whose isotopes are all radioactive, none of which is stable other than the fully ionized state of 97Tc.  Nearly all available technetium is produced as a synthetic element.  Naturally occurring technetium is a spontaneous fission product in uranium ore and thorium ore, the most common source, or the product of neutron capture in molybdenum ores.  The silvery gray, crystalline transition metal lies between manganese and ruthenium in group 7 of the periodic table, and its chemical properties are intermediate between those of both adjacent elements.  The most common naturally occurring isotope is 99Tc, in traces only.

     Many of technetium's properties had been predicted by Dmitri Mendeleev before it was discovered.  Mendeleev noted a gap in his periodic table and gave the undiscovered element the provisional name ekamanganese.  In 1937 technetium became the first predominantly artificial element to be produced, hence its name.

     One shortlived gamma ray-emitting nuclear isomer, technetium-99m, is used in nuclear medicine for a wide variety of tests, such as bone cancer diagnoses.  The ground state of the nuclide technetium-99 is used as a gamma-ray-free source of beta particles.  Long lived technetium isotopes produced commercially are byproducts of the fission of uranium-235 in nuclear reactors and are extracted from nuclear fuel rods.