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Title: What would you do to speed up a radioactive decay on an element that had a half life of say 1 million years? Post by: nursing111 on Jan 16, 2013 Would you just add a catalyst? If so what could be a catalyst for a radioactive decay?
Title: What would you do to speed up a radioactive decay on an element that had a half life of say 1 million years? Post by: Leon.g on Jan 16, 2013 You cannot change the half-life; not with a catalyst, high temperature, or high pressure. It is set foever.r
Title: What would you do to speed up a radioactive decay on an element that had a half life of say 1 million years? Post by: Tonjia on Jan 16, 2013 I'd accelerate everything but that element to near the speed of light. Einstein's theory of relativity would state that the element would have aged must faster than everything else!
TADA!!! Title: What would you do to speed up a radioactive decay on an element that had a half life of say 1 million years? Post by: ritznca on Jan 16, 2013 There is no way to speed up the rate of decay.
Title: What would you do to speed up a radioactive decay on an element that had a half life of say 1 million years? Post by: Tonjia on Jan 16, 2013 Radioactive decay is a spontaneous process, and involves the nucleus only, and so any chemical catalyst will have no effect as they only affect the electrons.
In essence, decay is more of a physical process rather than chemical. We could bombard the element with protons/neutrons/alpha/beta radiation to force the atoms to become more unstable and decay faster. This is done in nuclear fission reactors to uranium (half life = 7 x 10^8 yrs!) with neutrons to cause the chain reaction. Problem is the products are usually radioactive themselves, with long half lives (hence radioactive waste from power stations). Title: What would you do to speed up a radioactive decay on an element that had a half life of say 1 million years? Post by: ritika on Jan 16, 2013 The decay rate of radioactive material is a constant. You can check that by looking at the formula that defines it (e^kt), k is a constant ratio of decay, t is the specific time. If decay rate could be altered by a catalyse or temperature then C14 or U238 dating would not be accurate.
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