Hydrogen Isotopes - Video Tutorials & Practice Problems
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Hydrogen Isotopes
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Now one key feature about hydrogen is that it possesses 3 isotopes. Here we call these isotopes protium, which is just regular hydrogen, deuterium, and tritium. So when we first talk about protium, or hydrogen, we see that it has, the most abundance out of the 3 isotopes. This is the one we're most familiar with, and we're going to say here that it has an atomic number of 1, which means it has 1 proton, and it also has a mass number of 1. When we subtract these, this gives us the number of neutrons, which is 0. Next, we have deuterium, which is another isotope of Hydrogen. Here we can write it as 2 over 1 h, or we can do 2 over 1 d for deuterium. Here this one has less than 1% abundance, so less than 1% of all the Hydrogen that exist in the universe is in this form. We're gonna say here, we'd still have 1 proton, and when we do 2 minus 1, that gives us 1 neutron. Now, Tritium, Tritium is very scarce, even more scarce than deuterium, and it's radioactive. It's created from the neutron bombardment of Lithium 6. And by bombarding Lithium 6 with neutrons, this is created. We also say that tritium itself can undergo electron emission. These are ideas that we've talked about in our chapter about radioactive processes. Now, here we'd say it still has 1 proton, and then we're going to say here 3 minus 1 gives us 2 neutrons. Besides these 3, we can talk about d two o. This might seem pretty familiar because it's similar to H two o. We call this deuterated water. So this is the water composed with the deuterium isotope. Some key takeaways about deuterated water is that it's much heavier because deuterium has a larger mass number or mass than regular hydrogen. So it's much heavier than regular water, and it's going to have a higher melting point and boiling point, and it's also denser than regular water. Now, like we said before, when it comes to Tritium, it's a radioactive isotope. You can look at notes dealing with tritium when you look under beta decay topic for more information on our radioactive reactions. So just remember, when it comes to hydrogen, these are the 3 isotopes that it possesses.
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example
Hydrogen Isotopes Example
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In this example question it says, how are the 3 Isotopes different from each other? Select the correct answer. So here it says, protium is half the mass of Tritium due to the difference in the number of neutrons. So protium is just regular Hydrogen, and then Tritium is this, the radioactive isotope of Hydrogen. Here the mass of hydrogen on our periodic table is around 1 gram per mole, which is related to its mass number, and tritium here is about 3 grams per mole. Proteum is not half the mass of tritium. To be half, it have to be at least 1.5. Deuterium is the most is more abundant than protium. Note, protium is the most abundant form of Hydrogen. All 3 isotopes possess slightly different electron configurations. Now your electron configurations is based on your number of electrons. All of them have the same number of electrons. 1. So they all would have the same electron configurations. So this leaves, d. Tritium is the only radioactive isotope of hydrogen and is the rarest of the 3. This is true. So here, our answer is option d.
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Problem
Problem
Select the correct explanation of how D2O varies from H2O.
A
Heavy water contains the second most abundant isotope of H, while regular water contains the most abundant isotope.
B
Water containing deuterium is radioactive.
C
Heavy water is composed of 2 tritium atoms and 1 O atom; regular water is composed of 2 protium atoms and 1 O atom.
D
Chemical properties of heavy water are identical to those of regular water.