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Many of you who are somewhat familiar with chemistry as a science or physics, have surely heard about a phenomenon known as radioactivity. It is a spontaneous decomposition of heavier elements that leads to lighter elements. The time period that is needed for the half of the mass of the radioactive material to decay is known as the half-life of that material. The shorter the half-life of an material, the higher its radioactivity is. Uranium needs about 4.5 billion years for half of its material to decay. On the other hand, the half-live of radium is about 1599 years. Polonium is one of the very higly radioactive materials and it has a half-life of only 139 days.

If one would inhale a radioactive material, that would have a very strong effect on the tissues in the body because in that case even alpha and beta radiation can do damage, and not only gamma radiation. Short-term exposure to a strong source of radioactive radiation leads to the appearance of sensations of heat that soon disappears, and after this, long-lasting pain usually occurs.

However, there are radioactive metals and compounds that we are more or less in almost daily contact. The first example are potassium fertilizers. Potassium has an isotope which is radioactive and usually potassium contains about 0.01% of this isotope, which has a half-life of about 1.5 billion years. The radioactive noble gas known as radon can be found everywhere around us as it is created by a process of disintegration of radioactive materials in the ground. Its concentration increases if the premises with some potentially radioactive compounds are not ventilated. Carbon also contains a very weak radioactive isotope, which allows measurement of the age of any organism.

Radioactive elements also have many other interesting properties. If one is interested in finding out even more related to the chemistry of these elements, it’s always a good idea to start with some of the chemistry tutorials.