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Zinc-54

Main isotopes of zinc
Iso­tope Decay
abun­dance half-life (t1/2) mode pro­duct
64Zn 49.2% stable
65Zn syn 244 d ε 65Cu
γ
66Zn 27.7% stable
67Zn 4.0% stable
68Zn 18.5% stable
69Zn syn 56 min β 69Ga
69mZn syn 13.8 h β 69Ga
70Zn 0.6% stable
71Zn syn 2.4 min β 71Ga
71mZn syn 4 d β 71Ga
72Zn syn 46.5 h β 72Ga
Standard atomic weight (Ar, standard)
  • 65.38(2)

Naturally occurring zinc (30Zn) is composed of the 5 stable isotopes 64Zn, 66Zn, 67Zn, 68Zn, and 70Zn with 64Zn being the most abundant (48.6% natural abundance). Twenty-five radioisotopes have been characterised with the most abundant and stable being 65Zn with a half-life of 244.26 days, and 72Zn with a half-life of 46.5 hours. All of the remaining radioactive isotopes have half-lives that are less than 14 hours and the majority of these have half-lives that are less than 1 second. This element also has 10 meta states.

Zinc has been proposed as a "salting" material for nuclear weapons (cobalt is another, better-known salting material). A jacket of isotopically enriched 64Zn, irradiated by the intense high-energy neutron flux from an exploding thermonuclear weapon, would transmute into the radioactive isotope 65Zn with a half-life of 244 days and produce approximately 1.115 MeV of gamma radiation, significantly increasing the radioactivity of the weapon's fallout for several days. Such a weapon is not known to have ever been built, tested, or used.



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