Technetium

My children have been bringing chemistry homework to me for assistance. It is balancing chemical equations to make the atoms of each element in the chemical equation match on both sides of the chemical reaction. Since their teachers have shown them one method (which I find cumbersome and time consuming), I tried showing them another simpler, faster method. This left both of my daughters in a panic and frustrated with me. I ended up just checking their answers instead of helping them.

Now, I am a closet chemist. I used to re-read my college chemistry book and work through some of the problems. I did it because I knew that I would have to deal with it again (being a parent) and wanted to remain at least aware of the processes. I remembered from the periodic table that there were several elements that were man made. Most of the elements above Uranium are made by man but there are a few that do not occur in nature. The 1st element to be made in a laboratory was Technetium.

Technetium is element number 43 and has he chemical symbol of Tc. It is a silvery gray, radioactive metal located between Rhenium and Manganese. It is named after the Greek word technetos which means artificial. Credit for its manufacture is given to Carlos Perrier and Emilio Segrè from the University of Palermo in Sicily.

Technetium actually has several uses. Because it has a short half life, it is used in nuclear medicine to do imaging and functional studies on various body parts and organs. It can also be used for industrial purposes as a corrosion inhibitor but due to its radioactive nature, has limited applications.

There are about 28 synthetic elements, three of which are before Uranium. Since this is a topic that fascinates me, you may see more of information on synthetic elements in the future.

Icool

Cobb