Question on Syllabus dot point

[AliAhsanAli]

"use available evidence to analyse benefits and problems associated with the use of radioactive isotopes in identified industries and medicine"

Does this mean i need specific examples of radioisotopes with benefits and disadvantages or disadvantages and benefits of radioisotopes in general?

just a question for my notes

[Mathew587]

Hey Ali,
You only have to answer it in a general sort of way with advantages and disadvantages in both medicine and society as the pros/cons of isotopes are quite general i.e. both strontium-90 and cobalt-60 both decay and release harmful radiation.
Hope that helped

[QC]

"use available evidence to analyse benefits and problems associated with the use of radioactive isotopes in identified industries and medicine"

Does this mean i need specific examples of radioisotopes with benefits and disadvantages or disadvantages and benefits of radioisotopes in general?

just a question for my notes

IMO/what i'm doing, you should focus on about 3-4 isotopes (probably the ones you have just been focusing on in the other dot points e.g Cobalt 60, Strontium 90, Technetium 99m, Sodium 24 etc.) and go through the benefits and problems of each, I think this will give your answer more depth in an exam. Also, if you are talking about individual substances, you have to memorise less because you to give the benefits of two isotopes in the dot point above.
Example:
In industry radioisotopes such as Cobalt – 60 are used in industrial radiography to inspect metal parts and welds for
defects. There are many benefits and problems when radioisotopes used in industrial radiography.
Benefits
 For example cobalt – 60 is a gamma ray emitter making it useful in the area of metals as gamma rays are the
best radiation to penetrate metals which is required in industrial radiography.
 It is also low energy emitting radioisotope which makes the work environment safer for the workers who
have daily exposure to the equipment reducing radiation exposure related illnesses occurring.
Problems
 However despite being low energy emitting, radiation emission still poses health risk for workers in the
vicinity of the experiment. This is a problem as it costs companies involved in industrial radioisotopes large
amounts of money to ensure safety measures are established.
 Cobalt - 60’s half-life of 5.3 years also poses a problem as replacement of equipment is required more
frequently and thus causes an economical problem.
That could be one of your examples.

[Chemystery]

The above are spot on, just remember to know your equations for the decay of both!!

I personally used technetium-99m as a medical radioisotope used for identifying tumours for cancer patients!
Pro is that it has a short half life of 6 hours so it has little harm with exposure to patient, and its penetrative abilities allow for results which could otherwise not be concluded
Cons are that it's an artificial radioisotope and needs to be made every time before use, and short half life increases the disposal into the environment. Also it cannot cure tumours, it can only locate them
           Equation:
                     Te99m ------->  Te99 + gamma

Easy to remember and simple! Cobalt-60 was relatively easy to remember too, just try to have 2 pros and 2 cons for each and it's equation! These are surprisingly quite easy to find on the Internet, and in case you have trouble just jump on to find some past summary notes for chem!

Good luck and happy studying!!

[RuiAce]

IMO/what i'm doing, you should focus on about 3-4 isotopes

Note - You only need to focus on ONE industrial and ONE medicine

[Chemystery]

Note - You only need to focus on ONE industrial and ONE medicine

^^^^ yes! It's good to have backups maybe, but only necessary to really know one each!