The relative abundance of an isotope in nature compared to other isotopes of the same element is relatively constant. The Chart of the Nuclides presents the relative abundance of the naturally occurring isotopes of an element in units of atom percent. Atom percent is the percentage of the atoms of an element that are of a particular isotope. Atom percent is abbreviated as a/o. For example, if a cup of water contains 8.23 x 10²⁴ atoms of oxygen, and the isotopic abundance of oxygen-18 is 0.20%, then there are 1.65 x 10²² atoms of oxygen-18 in the cup.

The atomic weight for an element is defined as the average atomic weight of the isotopes of the element. The atomic weight for an element can be calculated by summing the products of the isotopic abundance of the isotope with the atomic mass of the isotope.

Example:

Calculate the atomic weight for the element lithium. Lithium-6 has an atom percent abundance of 7.5% and an atomic mass of 6.015122 amu. Lithium-7 has an atomic abundance of 92.5% and an atomic mass of 7.016003 amu.

Solution:

The other common measurement of isotopic abundance is weight percent (w/o). Weight percent is the percent weight of an element that is a particular isotope. For example, if a sample of material contained 100 kg of uranium that was 28 w/o uranium-235, then 28 kg of uranium-235 was present in the sample.