CHM 11500 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Binding Energy, Electronvolt, Fluorine

• School: Purdue University
• Department: Chemistry
• Course: CHM 11500
• Professor: Chittaranjan Das

Document Summary

Chm 115 - lecture 7 - nuclear chemistry continued. Binding energy can be thought of as the energy holding nuclei together. Nbe is usually expressed in mev (mega-electron volts) The larger the binding energy, the more stable the nucleus. If you normalize the nuclear binding energies of elements by dividing nbe by the number of nucleons each element/isotope contains, nuclear binding energies can be compared as nuclear binding energy per nucleon. Nuclear binding energy is maximized for nuclei with mass numbers around 56. Nbe can be used to predict the type of nuclear reactions a nucleus will undergo. Nuclei will participate in the reaction that maximizes the nuclear binding energy. Nuclei with mass numbers smaller than 56 will undergo fusion to become larger and approach 56. Nuclei with mass numbers larger than 56 will undergo fission to become smaller and approach 56. Dna samples are fragmented and tagged with a radioisotope of phosphorus.