Transient radioactive equilibrium occurs when the parent nuclide and the daughter nuclide decay at essentially the same rate.

For transient equilibrium to occur, the parent must have a long half-life when compared to the daughter. An example of this type of compound decay process is barium-140, which decays by beta emission to lanthanum-140, which in turn decays by beta emission to stable cerium-140.

The decay constant for barium-140 is considerably smaller than the decay constant for lanthanum-140. Remember that the rate of decay of both the parent and daughter can be represented as N. Although the decay constant for barium-140 is smaller, the actual rate of decay (N) is initially larger than that of lanthanum-140 because of the great difference in their initial concentrations. As the concentration of the daughter increases, the rate of decay of the daughter will approach and eventually match the decay rate of the parent. When this occurs, they are said to be in transient equilibrium. A plot of the barium-lanthanum-cerium decay chain reaching transient equilibrium is shown in Figure 15.

Figure 15 Transient Equilibrium in the Decay of Barium-140

Secular equilibrium occurs when the parent has an extremely long half-life. In the long decay chain for a naturally radioactive element, such as thorium-232, where all of the elements in the chain are in secular equilibrium, each of the descendants has built up to an equilibrium amount and all decay at the rate set by the original parent. The only exception is the final stable element on the end of the chain. Its number of atoms is constantly increasing.

Summarv

The important information in this chapter is summarized on the following page.

Radioactivity Summary

Radioactivity is the decay of unstable atoms by the emission of particles and electromagnetic radiation.

A curie (Ci) is a unit of radioactivity equal to 3.7 x 10^O disintegrations per second.

A becquerel (Bq) is a unit of radioactivity equal to I disintegration per second.

The radioactive decay constant () is the probability per unit time that an atom will decay.

The radioactive half-life is the amount of time required for the activity to decrease to one-half its original value.

The activity of a substance can be calculated from the number of atoms and the decay constant based on the equation below.

The amount of activity remaining after a particular time can be calculated from the equation below.

The relationship between the decay constant and the half-life is shown below.

Plots of radioactive decay can be useful to describe the variation of activity over time. If decay is plotted using semi-log scale the plot results in a straight line.

Radioactive equilibrium exists when the production rate of a material is equal to the removal rate.

Transient radioactive equilibrium exists when the parent nuclide and the daughter nuclide decay at essentially the same rate. This occurs only when the parent has a long half-life compared to the daughter.