Bromine Isotopes

Bromine is an important chemical element and has a symbol B_r. The chemical properties of bromine are quite unique and distinguished as compared to those of other elements. Here are some of the notable bromine properties which you should know:

• The atomic number of bromine is 35
• Elemental bromine is toxic as well as corrosive; whereas free bromine is crystalline in nature and does not have a color
• Bromine is more reactive than iodine, but less reactive than chlorine
• Bromine is highly soluble in acetic acid and carbon disulphide and is known to have intense and strong bleaching action with several other elements
• Bromine has just 2 stable isotopes whereas there are around 23 radioisotopes

Though the main focus of my article is bromine isotopes,we can understand that better only after we are clear with the meaning of the term 'isotopes'.

Isotopes

The concept of isotopes was first suggested by Frederick Soddy way back in 1913 after studying radioactive decay chains thoroughly. Isotopes are defined as the variants of atoms of an elements which have unequal number of neutrons in them. If a particular element has two isotopes, than the mass number, or the number of nucleons in them, will not be the same. Now, you may want to know what exactly is the meaning of 'nucleons'. Nucleons is the sum of total number of protons and total number of neutrons of the element.

So, Nucleons = (Number of Protons) + (Number of neutrons). If an element has isotopes which are radioactive in nature, then they are called radioisotopes. Tin is the element which has maximum number of stable isotopes which is 10. ⁷⁹Br and ⁸¹Br are the two stable isotopes of bromine. The next section has detail information about bromine isotopes.

Bromine Isotopes

Bromine isotopes Br-79 and Br-81 have great application sin the field of medicine. While Br-81 has been useful for diagnostic purposes, Br-79 is helpful in radiotherapy after getting decayed into the radioisotope Br-77. Another known fact about bromine isotopes is that most of them are results of fission. Given below is a table giving information about the half-life of various bromine isotopes.

Nuclide Symbol	Number of Neutrons	Isotopic Mass	Half Life
66Br	31	Not known	Not known
67Br	32	66.96	Not known
68Br	33	67.95	<1.2 micro sec
69Br	34	68.95	<24 nano sec
70Br	35	69.94	79.1 milli sec
71Br	36	70.93	21.4 sec
72Br	37	71.93	78.6 seconds
73Br	38	3.4	72.9 min
74Br	39	73.92	25.4 min
75Br	40	74.92	96.7 min
76Br	41	75.92	16.2 hours
77Br	42	76.92	57.036 hours
78Br	43	77.92	6.46 min
79Br	44	78.91	Stable
80Br	45	79.91	17.68 min
81Br	46	80.91	Stable
82Br	47	81.91	35.28 hours
83Br	48	82.91	2.40 hours
84Br	49	83.91	31.80 min
85Br	50	84.91	2.90 min
86Br	51	85.91	55.1 sec
87Br	52	86.92	55.65 sec
88Br	53	87.92	16.29 sec
89Br	54	88.92	4.40 sec
90Br	55	89.93	1.91 sec
91Br	56	90.93	541 milli sec
92Br	57	91.93	0.34 sec
93Br	58	92.94	102 milli sec
94Br	59	93.94	70 milli sec
95Br	60	94.95	>300 nanosec
96Br	61	95.95	>300 nanosec
97Br	62	96.96	>300 nanosec

Here are some more bromine isotopes and their half-life that may interest you...


This information on bromine isotopes will prove to be very useful for chemistry students. In general, the concept of isotopes is important to understand principles and fundamentals of advanced chemistry. So, my suggestion to those planning a career in chemistry would be to get your basics right so that you can go deep into this interesting subject and understand it thoroughly.