Low- and high-temperature heat capacity of metallic technetium

[NNadir]

2. Yes, this is a serious problem. It appears that a hospital accelerator using proton bombardment of...

...⁹⁸Mo might give the ⁹⁹Tc nuclear isomer, to which ^99mTc decays, so to use an accelerator, one would need to use it as a spallation source, which is why, I guess, ⁹⁹Mo fission product sources are used.

(My son did a summer internship at a spallation facility at Oak Ridge, but I think it was pretty energetic. I'm not sure that hospital accelerators qualify in this setting.)

It is notable that during imaging, the ^99mTc decays to ⁹⁹Tc, not ⁹⁹Ru and one has to piss away the longer lived isotope, which remains in the body for several days. The ^99mTc imaging technology saves lives.

⁹⁹Tc (ground state) is not much of a health hazard, and it does call to mind all the hysteria about Sellafield and La Hague releasing ⁹⁹Tc, into the ocean where the concentration was incredibly lower than in a typical medical test.

This was a bad idea I think, not because of risk, but because the metal, which has marvelous properties - including the ability to catalyze the reduction of NO₃^- to N₂ and N₂O with hydrazine - as well as remarkable metallic properties, high strength, chemical inertness, and a high melting point, is extremely valuable in my opinion. We definitely need to retain technetium for use, particularly because rhenium supplies are limited.

The property of preventing the corrosion of steel via the formation of a TcO₂ passivation layer is, I think, an important application that should not be ignored.