Technetium

Technetium: the essentials

 Brief description: since its discovery, searches for the element technetium in terrestrial materials have been made without success. Technetium has been found in the spectrum of S-, M-, and N-type stars, and its presence in stellar matter is leading to new theories of the production of heavy elements in the stars.

Technetium is a silvery-grey metal that tarnishes slowly in moist air. Until 1960, technetium was available only in small amounts. The chemistry of technetium is related to that of rhenium.

There is a thin plating of technetium-99 on this disk and this radioactive sample gives about 200 counts per minute. Image adapted with permission from Prof James Marshall's (U. North Texas, USA) Walking Tour of the elements CD.

Isolation

Isolation: it is never necessary to make a sample of techntium anywhere other than specialist laboratories. This is because technetium is radioactive. Technetium is a byproduct of the nuclear industry and is a product of uranium decay. Alternatively it can be made by the bombardment of molydenum targets with deuterium nuclei.

Because of the scale of the nuclear industry it is possible to make quite large quantities of technetium (kilograms). The metal itself may be made by the reaction of the sulphide Tc₂S₇ with hydrogen at 1100°C or of the pertechnate NH₄TcO₄ with hydrogen.

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