Sodium-22

Sodium has two radioactive cosmogenic isotopes (²²Na, with a half-life of 2.6019(6) years; and ²⁴Na, with a half-life of 14.9560(15) h). With the exception of those two isotopes, all other isotopes have half-lives under a minute, most under a second. The shortest-lived is ¹⁸Na, with a half-life of 1.3(4)×10^-21 seconds.

Sodium-22 is a radioactive isotope of sodium, undergoing positron emission to ²²Ne with a half-life of 2.6019(6) years. ²²Na is being investigated as an efficient generator of “cold positrons” (antimatter) to produce muons for catalyzing fusion of deuterium. It is also commonly used as a positron source in positron annihilation spectroscopy.

²²Na is a positron-emitting isotope with a remarkably long half-life. It is used to create test-objects and point-sources for positron emission tomography.

Spectrum (Fullscreen)

5 minute measurement with a High Purity Germanium (HPGe) radiation detector.

Metadata

Isotope:	Sodium
Mass number:	22
Atomic number:	11
Neutron number:	11
…	…

Sources and Further Read

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_sodium