Jeff Kingsley

BME495
02/20/13

BME495 HW#5 Problem 1b,1c

Problem 1b.
Clear
% Code to plot to the Radioactive decay of 99m Technetium
lambda_1 = 2.92E-6; %Decay constant when technetium 99m is formed from
Molybdenum 99
lambda_2 = 3.21E-5;% Decay constant when technetium 99 decays to 99G
technetium
T_half = 21600; %half life of technetium (seconds)
t=1; % initial value of time (seconds)
N_zero=1; %Initial value of molybdenum atoms
act_T99=0; %Initial value of Technetium 99

time = 1:1:100*T_half; %Time interval for decay (seconds)

while t<=length(time) %Condition for while loop: while loop runs until time
interval is succeeded
act_T99(t)=(lambda_1*N_zero)/(lambda_2-lambda_1)*(exp(-lambda_1*t)-exp(lambda_2*t)); %Derived equation for the time dependent radioactivity of 99m
technetium
t=t+1; %Increments the time interval
end
plot(time,act_T99); %Plots the time on x axis and radioactivity of technetium
on the y-axis
title('Activity of Technetium 99m');
xlabel('activity period of technetium 99m');
ylabel('activity of Technetium 99m over its radioactive decay');
grid on;
Figure 1.

Jeff Kingsley
BME495
02/20/13

Problem 1c.
%Code to find the maximum radioactivity time
[activity,time] = max(act_T99);
% Answers for Problem 1c:
% activity = 0.0716
%
% time = 82155 seconds

For problem 1b, the code simply plots the derived time-dependent solution for the
radioactivity of 99m technetium. The derived equation shows a peak in the
radioactivity, before a slow decay. The radioactivity was plotted over 100 times the
given half-life of technetium to ensure the maximum and minimum radioactivity
could be observed. The plot of the activity of 99m technetium is shown in Fig
1.
For problem 1c, the max function was utilized in Matlab. This function identifies the
point or points where the slope of the graph equal zero. Thus, the max function can
be used to identify where the maximum radioactivity occurs. Through this
analysis it was determined that the maximum radioactivity of 0.0716
occurs at 82155 seconds or at about 22.82 hours.