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Sodium has a half-life of 15 hours. If
there are 800 g of Na initially, how long
will it take for...
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Sodium has a half-life of 15 hours. If there are 800 g of Na initially, how long will it member and
take for 750 g of Na to decay?
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Half-Life:
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A radioactive substance is the one that spontaneously disintegrates. It consists of days
heavy unstable nuclei that spontaneously decay into lighter, more stable nuclei.
The decay occurs spontaneously.
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The half-life of a substance is the time in which half of the substance decays. It
depends on the nature of the substance and is independent of other parameters
in the case of nuclear decay.

Note that half-life is used for other reactions as well in biology and chemistry,
where it denotes the time of disintegration of half of the molecules. %
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The half-life of Sodium, τ = 15 h

the initial mass of the sample, m0 = 800 g Ask a question

The mass decayed, m = 750 g

The mass of sodium remaining is:

m′ = m0 − m Search Answers
= 800 g − 750 g
= 50 g

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The amount of substance remaining after a time equal to n half-lives is given by

the equation:
m0
m′ =
2n

Here,

m0 is the initial mass of the substance.

m′ is the mass of the substance remaining after n half-lives.

After plugging the given values into the above equation, we have:
800 g
50 g =
2n
800 g
⇒ 2n =
50 g
⇒ 2n = 16
⇒ 2n = 24
⇒n= 4

Therefore, it will take ∆t = nτ = 4 × 15 h = 60 h for 750 g of sodium to decay, starting with an

initial mass of m0 = 800 g.

Learn more about this topic:

Half-life: Calculating Radioactive
Decay and Interpreting Decay
Graphs
from Chemistry 101: General Chemistry
Chapter 4 / Lesson 3

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