Nickel-59
Ni-59 · Nickel, Z = 28, A = 59
A gigabecquerel of Ni-59 is 339 mg of material, which follows from a specific activity of 2.95e+9 Bq/g (0.0798 Ci/g). Nickel-59 decays by electron capture with beta-plus with a half-life of 7.6 × 10⁴ years; forty years leaves 99.96% of today's activity and ten thousand years leaves 91.28%.
At 2.95e+9 Bq per gram, a 1 kBq aliquot of Ni-59 is 339 ng — the quantity that has to be recovered, dissolved and counted, because this dataset carries no photon, beta or alpha line for it above the reporting thresholds.
Decay is the only handle: forty years leaves 99.96% of today's activity and ten thousand years leaves 91.28%, with ten half-lives at 759,984 years and a mean life of 109,642 years per atom.
Half-life 7.6 × 10⁴ years, 2.95e+9 Bq/g, and no line recorded
| Half-life | 7.6 × 10⁴ years (2.398e+12 s) |
| Decay mode | electron capture with beta-plus |
| Specific activity | 2.95e+9 Bq/g (0.0798 Ci/g) |
Activity over millennia
Ten half-lives is 759,984 years. On any timescale a facility can be planned over the activity is constant — 99.96% is left after forty years — and the mean life 1/λ is 109,642 years.
| Elapsed | Fraction remaining |
|---|---|
| 1 half-life | 50.0 % |
| 2 half-lives | 25.0 % |
| 5 half-lives | 3.13 % |
| 10 half-lives | 0.0977 % |
| Time to fall to 10 % of today's activity | 252,461 years |
| Time to fall to 1 % | 504,922 years |
| Time to fall to 0.1 % | 757,383 years |
Limits of these figures
- What every sheet leaves out, internal dose included.
Decay and mass calculators for Ni-59
Other Nickel nuclides: Ni-63
Computed from the IAEA Nuclear Data Section — Livechart API (ENSDF) and the NIST X-Ray Mass Attenuation Coefficients. Derivations and citations.