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Isotopes of Bismuth
Notes
While bismuth was traditionally regarded as the element with the heaviest stable isotope, bismuth-209, it had long been suspected to be unstable on theoretical grounds. This was finally demonstrated in 2003 when researchers at the Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale in Orsay, France, measured the alpha emission half-llife of 209Bi to be 1.9 x 1019 years, over a billion times longer than the current estimated age of the universe. Owing to its extraordinarily long half-llife, for nearly all applications bismuth can be treated as if it is stable and non-radioactive. The radioactivity is of academic interest, however, because bismuth is one of few elements whose radioactivity was suspected, and indeed theoretically predicted, before being detected in the laboratory.
Notable Isotopes show graph
207Bi [124 neutrons]
Abundance: synthetic
Half life: 31.55 years [ Electron Capture ]
Decay Energy: 2.399 MeV
Decays to 207Pb.
208Bi [125 neutrons]
Abundance: synthetic
Half life: 3368000 years [ Electron Capture ]
Decay Energy: 2.880 MeV
Decays to 208Pb.
209Bi [126 neutrons]
Abundance: 100%
Half life: 1.9 (+-0.2) x 1019 years [ Alpha Decay ]
Decay Energy: ? MeV
Decays to 205Tl.