Talk:Astatine

Article changed over to new Wikipedia:WikiProject Elements format by maveric149. Elementbox converted 12:37, 10 July 2005 by Femto (previous revision was that of 07:39, 11 June 2005).

Information Sources

Some of the text in this entry was rewritten from Los Alamos National Laboratory - Astatine. Additional text was taken directly from the Elements database 20001107 (via dict.org) and WordNet (r) 1.7 (via dict.org). Data for the table was obtained from the sources listed on the main page and Wikipedia:WikiProject Elements but was reformatted and converted into SI units.

Ionization energy

From the Village Pump

According to your web page, the first ionization energy of astatine is 20KJ/mol. But i have contacted many universities to check if the first ionization energy has been discovered, and so far all of them have denied of the idea. please contact me to tell me where you got your source for this info. My name is Maulik Shah and my email is: <EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED>

Thanks

The number 20 is much less than the periodic trend set by Cl, Br and I would seem to predict. -Smack 23:53, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I sent this by email, and was attempting to post it to the pump when my network went down. Smack gave his reply before I could do so...

Information on sources for the element tables is at Wikipedia:WikiProject Elements. The ionization energy for astatine came from the following secondary source: http://www.webelements.com/webelements/elements/text/At/ionz.html . WebElements cites their sources here: [1]. I suggest you look up those two references. It seems entirely possible to me that the ionisation energy was estimated numerically, but that the details of this estimation were lost somewhere between the initial publication and the posting on WebElements.com. (Also by email) -- Tim Starling 01:29, Jan 6, 2004 (UTC)

I looked it up in the Gmelin handbook for astatine. It gives a number of references to different calculations that predict the 1st ionization energy as around 9.4eV (about 907 kJ/mol, if I've done the calculation right). It doesn't seem to have yet been experimentally measured. Actually, looking at the webpage referenced about it actually gives it as 920 kJ/mol, I suspect a typo -- DrBob 23:46, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

NIST quotes a single determination of the ionization energy, 890±40 kJ/mol, by Finkelnburg, W.; Humbach, W. (1955). "Ionisierungsenergien von Atomen und Atomionen." Naturwiss. 42:35. Physchim62 (talk) 13:47, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Rarest?

Which element is truly "the rarest naturally occuring element in the world", francium or astatine? I do not know if there is a definite answer, but I believe the wording in one or both of these articles would be appropriate. (I placed this discussion in francium's talk page as well, so be sure to check up on that discussion too.)

According to the guinness book of world records astatine is the rarest naturally occuring element with only an estimated 6 ounces in the entire mass of earth.

So then should we take out the phrase "With the possible exception of francium,"?

Actually, the equilibrium mass of astatine (218At) in the earth crust is about 0,13 g whereas the mass of francium (223Fr) is about 340 g. The claim of the Guinness Book of Records (on 25 g of At in the earth crust) is wrong. --V1adis1av 18:25, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

The article on Lutetium states that this element is "the least abundant of all naturally-occurring elements". Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that essentially saying that that's also "the rarest naturally occuring element in the world"? TerraFrost 21:12, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Not necessarily. You might have more Francium and Astatine in outer space, while a bunch of Lutetium could have accumalated up on Earth. But that's just a possible clause. Don't take anything I say as fact.--198.161.102.118 03:18, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

The nonsense in the lutetium article about being rare has been removed since. Femto 11:20, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I suggest the longest lived Isotope of Astatine is not necessarily the naturally occurring one. Thus, a shorter lived Isotope might be the naturally occuring one. This is based upon the rule of thumb that shorter half-life = less abundant. It would be nice for someone to put in what the naturally occurring isotope is. How about it?

Inspection of the various decay chains of radioactive heavy elements shows that the isotopes of astatine in these chains are in fact not the longest-lived isotope ²¹⁰At (half-life 8.1 hours), but rather ²¹⁸At (half-life 1.5 seconds), ²¹⁷At (half-life 32 milliseconds), and ²¹⁵At (half-life 0.1 ms). Furthermore, the progenitor of ²¹⁸At is ²³⁸U with an extremely long half-life of 4.468 billion years. As I am not a nuclear physicist, I will wait briefly for possible comment by someone with more knowledge of the subject before integrating this point, in less detail, into the article. It seems that it would also be helpful to mention the extreme rarity of astitine very near the beginning of the article; otherwise the many uncertainties about its characteristics discussed early in the article may seem rather odd to the layman. Piperh 17:20, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh and the answer to the question of the rarest element might just be Technetium. Since it has been found to occur on the earth in extraordinary circumstances. This depends upon what you mean, rarest on earth, or rarest in the universe.

I have never been very convinced by claims of naturally occuring technetium. It would have been formed in the Oklo phenomenon (2 billion years ago), but all of that would have decayed by now. However, due to nuclear power generation, there is probably more available technetium than available rhenium! Physchim62 (talk) 09:23, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

You don't need a nuclear reactor (or an Oklo phenomenon) for spontaneous fission to occur. Spontaneous fission of uranium happens all the time, although very slowly. The reactor just makes it much faster by sustaining a chain reaction.--Itub 08:30, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

In reality, this question cannot be answered by anyone. When we are dealing with such small amounts as 10 ounces or less, it is impossible to know which element is least occurring. It could be any of the elements that have been suggested here. Bonzostar (talk) 16:59, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

The case of Tc, Pm, and the transuranic elements may be more complex, but the ratio of At to Fr can indeed be calculated with good accuracy because they both stem from uranium and all the half-lives and decay pathways are very well known. I haven't done the detailed calculation, but just from looking at the half-lives and probabilities it is apparent that Fr must be much more abundant than At. The ratio implied by the numbers given by V1adis1av above seems plausible to me. --Itub (talk) 09:42, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Based on the estimate cited at technetium (1 ng/kg U), there should be tonnes of Tc in the earth's crust, ie three or four orders of magnitude more than Fr and six to eight orders of magnitude more that At. Promethium is about as abundant as francium, according to the estimate cited in the article. Physchim62 (talk) 10:05, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Name

Why is it called Astatine? Jimpartame 11:29, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

From the History section: Greek astatos meaning "unstable", named 1940. No stable isotopes. That's all there seems to be behind it. Femto 12:20, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Half-life of 210At

The article states a 8.1 hours half-life of ²¹⁰At. However, other sources, including lots of websites and the German Wikipedia, say it's 8.3 hours. Unfortunately, some other websites concur with the 8.1h figure so I am not entirely sure who's right. Does anyone have reliable sources? Aragorn2 15:32, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

All references cited at Talk:Isotopes of astatine say 8.1 h. Femto 17:20, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

The article says "The longest-lived isotope is 210At, which has a half-life of 8.3 hours". So, should I revise it? I think I shall, but feel free to change it back. Andrew Kanode (talk) 20:41, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Graffiti?

I notice the article has the phrase "Your a pussy faggot" in it, after the discussion of thyroids, however it doesn't show up as editable in the edit this page section. Any help by some wiki guru would be awesome. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.14.185.63 (talk • contribs) 16:55, 27 November 2006.

It was removed 26 Nov 19:51 UTC. You must have had the old version in your browser cache and saw the already fixed version only when you tried to edit. Thanks for noticing anyway! Femto 19:06, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

there some more graffiti at the top: "It will explode if you use viagra." --80.42.61.251 22:51, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Uses?

Please list some uses.

Decay?

How does it decay? What are the products? What is emitted? 68.121.160.61 02:21, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

It's found at the bottom of the infobox on the right side. Squids'and'Chips 02:23, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! I guess I didn't know how to read it.

Is the half life of the lonest lived astatine isotope 8.1 hours or 8.3 hours (the main article says both). Or is it something else? I think it was Napoleon who said that consistency is the last refuge of fools. Someone here is trying to avoid being foolish maybe.... ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ruaken (talk • contribs) 22:07, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Astatine-211

I was searching Google and came across source 7, a use for At-211, but is difficult to understand. Am I the only one that thinks this? Wii Wiki (talk) 19:31, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

References

doi:10.1007/BF01375144 and doi:10.1007/BF00899023 are good refs!--Stone (talk) 21:18, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

• doi:10.1063/1.1747034 is another one.Stone (talk) 05:17, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Strange "e"

Does anyone else see the letter "e" right below the last external link, "Doc Brown's Chemistry Clinic - Group 7 The Halogens"? — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 22:36, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

It was caused by an error in one of the templates: I've corrected it now, and (browser caches etc permitting) it should be gone by the time anyone reads this message! Physchim62 (talk) 23:34, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I thought it might be a template error, but, to be honest, I didn't want to check which one it was. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 23:56, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Image

An image purporting to be that of astatine is on this page but macroscopic quantities have never yet been prepared and probably never will be. Further explanation needs to accompany this image. EmleyMoor (talk) 13:05, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Naming

It is and will be called astatine, that is a fact. But the last lines say it was called Helvetium, then changed to Anglohelvetium, and it doesn't say who changed it why and when to astatine. I threaten you with moving the page to Anglohelvetium! (half a joke), but the reason and person who changed it to the present astatine should be stated (the best would be sourced, but not nessecarily) --Eu-151 (talk) 18:25, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Er, "The name Helvetium was chosen by the Swiss chemist Walter Minder, when he announced the discovery of element 85 in 1940, but changed his suggested name to Anglohelvetium in 1942.[9]" clearly says who changed it and cites a ref. It is not required that we analyze his action and divine a reason (or even if a personal decision necessarily has a reason or that anyone's written it down), but if you find a cited explanation that's a nice addition. DMacks (talk) 01:18, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Uses Really?

can Astatine really be used for anything? Surely it's half life is too short?