thorium-232
Sign in to saveAlso known as Th-232, 232Th
Thorium-232 () is the main naturally occurring isotope of thorium, with a relative abundance of 99.98%. It has a half-life of 14.0 billion years, which makes it the longest-lived isotope of thorium. It decays by alpha decay to radium-228; its decay chain terminates at stable lead-208.
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- isotope of thorium
- Subclass of
- thorium
- Mass
- 232.038053689
Show 8 more facts
- neutron number
- 142
- atomic number
- 90
- half-life
- 14000000000.0
- natural abundance
- 1.0
- spin quantum number
- 0.0
- parity quantum number
- 1
- mass excess
- 35446.784
- binding energy
- 1766687.656
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Encyclopedic overview
5 sectionsContents
- Natural occurrence
- Decay
- Rare decay modes
- Use in nuclear power
- References
Thorium-232 () is the main naturally occurring isotope of thorium, with a relative abundance of 99.98%. It has a half-life of 14.0 billion years, which makes it the longest-lived isotope of thorium. It decays by alpha decay to radium-228; its decay chain terminates at stable lead-208.
Thorium-232 is a fertile material; it can capture a neutron to form thorium-233, which subsequently undergoes two successive beta decays to uranium-233, which is fissile. As such, it has been used in the thorium fuel cycle in nuclear reactors; various prototype thorium-fueled reactors have been designed. However, as of 2024, thorium fuel has not been widely adopted for commercial-scale nuclear power.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “thorium-232” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
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