Is bismuth reactive

Answer 1

For nearly all practical purpose, bismuth can be regarded as not radioactive. There is only one isotope of bismuth ordinarily found in nature, 209Bi, and though it is radioactive, it is only barely so, having a half life of 19,000,000,000,000,000,000 years, a fact only recently discovered. Like all elements, there are synthetic radioactive isotopes of bismuth.

Answer 2

Bismuth's half-life is 1.9*10^19 years - which is more than 1 billion times the age of the universe, so the decay is hard to notice.

The alpha particles emitted have a maximum range of 4 inches, and they can be blocked by a sheet of paper.

If the age of the universe is taken to 13.7 billion years, only 50 billionths of the bismuth created at that time would have experienced nuclear decay.

If you were to eat a kilo of bismuth, you would experience 250 nuclear decays in a day. A typical 70 kg human being experiences 4200 nuclear decays per second from the 140 grams of potassium a 70 kg person contains.

I wouldn't worry about bismuth, but try to avoid eating it.

Answer 3

It depends on what isotope you are talking about. Beryllium-9 is stable, and thus, not radioactive. Beryllium-10 is unstable, and thus, radioactive, and it has a half-life of a million and a half years. The other 10 isotopes of beryllium are also unstable, and also radioactive, and they have very short half-lives, the longest of which is 53 days, beryllium-7.

Answer 4

All isotopes of barium ordinarily found in nature are stable. Like all elements, barium has synthetic radioactive isotopes.

Answer 5

Yes, Bismuth is reactive towards acids forming the different types of salts which are used as pigments.

Answer 6

Bismuth is not so reactive; the Pauling electronegativity is 2,02.

Answer 7

Between the natural isotopes of beryllium 7Be and 10Be are radioactive but they are extremely rare. 10Be is used as a geochemical tracer for soils.

Answer 8

In my opinion, no.

Answer 9

Yes