BRAINCAKETechnetium
A technetium generator consists of molybdenum-99 exposed to neutron radiation to make some of the nuclei unstable. Some of the nuclei decay to metastable technetium, and if sodium chloride passed through a column consisting of Mo-99, ion-exchange occurs between chloride ions and pertechnate ions. A solution containng pertechnate ions is obtained. This can be injected into the blood a subject and used in diagnoses e.g. in brain scans, using a gamma camera. For imaging bones, a phosphate tracer labelled with Tc-99 can be used.
Sign in free to see the rest of this lesson, the R.E.C.I.P.E. recall steps and the quiz
BrainCake is free. Make an account in seconds and pick up where this page stops.
More in Radioactivity
- Radioactive Tracers
- Thickness monitoring and Engine Wear
- Power Sources
- N-Z Graph
- Decay Series
- Energy Levels
- Electron Diffraction
- Nuclear Radius and Density
All 25 lessons in Radioactivity · All OCR A-level Physics topics