{"id":224348,"date":"2025-10-31T22:09:41","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T03:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/experimental-proof-of-long-suspected-atomic-decay-pathway-adds-new-detail-to-nuclear-periodic-table"},"modified":"2025-10-31T22:09:41","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T03:09:41","slug":"experimental-proof-of-long-suspected-atomic-decay-pathway-adds-new-detail-to-nuclear-periodic-table","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/experimental-proof-of-long-suspected-atomic-decay-pathway-adds-new-detail-to-nuclear-periodic-table","title":{"rendered":"Experimental proof of long-suspected atomic decay pathway adds new detail to \u2018nuclear periodic table\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/experimental-proof-of-long-suspected-atomic-decay-pathway-adds-new-detail-to-nuclear-periodic-table.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>For the first time, a research team from the University of Cologne has observed the electron capture decay of technetium-98, an isotope of the chemical element technetium (Tc). Electron capture decay is a process in which an atomic nucleus \u201ccaptures\u201d an electron from its inner shell. The electron merges with a proton in the nucleus to form a neutron, turning the element into a different one. The working group from the Nuclear Chemistry department has thus confirmed a decades-old theoretical assumption.<\/p>\n<p>The findings contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of technetium <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/decay\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">decay<\/a> processes and extend the chart of nuclides\u2014the \u201cnuclear periodic table.\u201d The study was <a href=\"https:\/\/link.aps.org\/doi\/10.1103\/y5d7-85w5\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> under the title \u201cElectron-capture decay of <sup>98 <\/sup>Tc\u201d in the journal Physical Review C.<\/p>\n<p>As early as the 1990s, researchers suspected that technetium-98 could also decay by capturing an electron, but no proof could be found, as the isotope only is available in extremely small quantities. For the current study, the Cologne research team used around three grams of technetium-99, which contains tiny traces of the rare isotope technetium-98 (around 0.06 micrograms).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the first time, a research team from the University of Cologne has observed the electron capture decay of technetium-98, an isotope of the chemical element technetium (Tc). Electron capture decay is a process in which an atomic nucleus \u201ccaptures\u201d an electron from its inner shell. The electron merges with a proton in the nucleus [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-224348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chemistry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224348\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}