Each of the following nuclei undergoes either beta decay or positron emission. Predict the type of emission for each: (a) tritium, 31H.

Video transcript

Hey everyone we're asked will the nuclei hydrogen for undergo beta decay or positron emission. To answer this question, we first need to determine our N over Z ratio which is essentially our neutron to proton ratio. So we can simply write this as our atomic mass minus our atomic number. All over our atomic number. Since our atomic mass is the sum of our protons and neutrons. And our atomic number gives us our number of protons. So by subtracting our atomic number from our atomic mass, we simply get our number of neutrons. So when we plug in these values we get four minus one since our atomic masses for And our atomic number is one And we're going to divide this by one. When we calculate this out, we end up with an N oversee ratio of three. Now, since our atomic number is less than 20, this means our N oversee ratio must be equal to 1.0 in order to be considered stable. So as we can see right here, we calculated an anniversary ratio, that is greater than 1. which essentially tells us that we have too many neutrons and that we are above the band of stability. And since we are above the band of stability, we are most likely to undergo beta decay And this is going to be our final answer. Now I hope that made sense. And let us know if you have any questions