Radioactive tracer
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A radioactive tracer, also called a radioactive label, is a substance containing a radioisotope (which is an isotope that has an unstable nucleus and that stabilizes itself by spontaneously emitting energy and particles). Tracers can be used to measure the speed of chemical processes and to track the movement of a substance through a natural system such as a cell or a tissue.[1] Radioactive tracing was developed by George de Hevesy.
Radioactive tracers are substances that contain a radioactive atom to allow easier detection and measurement. (Radioactivity is the property possessed by some elements of spontaneously emitting energy in the form of particles or waves by disintegration of their atomic nuclei.) For example, it is possible to make a molecule of water in which one of the two hydrogen atoms is a radioactive tritium (hydrogen-3) atom. This molecule behaves in almost the same way as a normal molecule of water. The main difference between the tracer molecule containing tritium and the normal molecule is that the tracer molecule continually gives off radiation that can be detected with a Geiger counter or some other type of radiation detection instrument.
One application for the tracer molecule described above would be to monitor plant growth by watering plants with it. The plants would take up the water and use it in leaves, roots, stems, flowers, and other parts in the same way it does with normal water. In this case, however, it would be possible to find out how fast the water moves into any one part of the plant. One would simply pass a Geiger counter over the plant at regular intervals and see where the water has gone.
In medicine tracers are applied, such as Technetium-99 in autoradiography and nuclear medicine, including single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), positron emission tomography (PET) and scintigraphy. It has a basic isotope requirement during its isotopic reactions
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It can be used in medical, or agricultural way
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