The radioisotope, tritium () has a half-life of 12.3 years. If the initial amount of tritium is 32 mg, how many milligrams of it would remain after 49.2 years:
1 mg
2 mg
4 mg
8 mg
Radioactive decay follows first-order kinetics. The amount of radioactive substance remaining () after half-lives is given by the formula:
where is the initial amount of the substance.
Given: Initial amount, Half-life, Total time,
First, calculate the number of half-lives ():
Now, substitute the values into the formula to find the remaining amount:
Therefore, 2 mg of tritium would remain after 49.2 years.
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