Lesson aim: Produce a resource on

the uses and dangers of radioactivity.

1. Read notes
2. Answer questions at the end of the powerpoint (slide 25) to check your understanding Get in touch with
3. Mark the questions (slides 26 & 27) me if you need
any help with any
4. Produce your resource – I will mark this of it!
5. Submit on Teams via assignments

• To get you started with your ‘resource’ are notes on this powerpoint, on this BBC bitesize page (
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zp86v9q/revision/3 ) and here http://www.darvill.clara.net/nucrad/uses.htm

• The resource can take any form you like – essay/video/poster etc.
• Key things to include (+ your own research):
• Radioactive dating
• What is it? Are there different ways of dating objects?
• What type of dating do we use for previously living objects?
• How does the dating work? What are we actually detecting?
• What limitations are there? Plus: Please also include
• Radioactive tracers info on the dangers of
• Industrial
• Medical (eg PET scans)
radioactivity from your
• Smoke alarms, own independent
• Sterilisation of food or medical equipment, research
• Radiotherapy,
• Material Thickness testing.
 Starter: Match these up…
1. Cosmic Radiation A. Are two radioactive gasses
present in the air

2. Radon and Thoron B. Is taken up by plants and

animals which may be eaten
by humans
3. Coal
C. Comes from space
4. Radioactivity D. Contains small amounts of
radioactive materials such as
5. Natural Radioactive uranium and radium
Material E. May be detected using a
Geiger-Muller counter
 Starter Answers
1. Cosmic Radiation A. Are two radioactive gasses
present in the air

2. Radon and Thoron B. Is taken up by plants and

animals which may be eaten
by humans
3. Coal
C. Comes from space
4. Radioactivity D. Contains small amounts of
radioactive materials such as
5. Natural Radioactive uranium and radium
Material E. May be detected using a
Geiger-Muller counter
 Radioactivity so far:
Four types of radiation come from the nucleus of unstable atoms.

It is a RANDOM process but each nucleus has a certain probability of

decaying (and turning into a new element for alpha and beta decays).

Heat, chemical combination, pressure – none of these affect it.

Properties of alpha, beta, gamma and neutron.

Half-life calculations.
Objectives – More Uses of Radioactivity

All will recall what radioactivity can be used for.

All should describe how radioactivity can be used.

All should be able to explain how to use radioactivity

to determine the age of an object.

All could explain why radioactive sources are used

for these purposes.
Uses of radioactivity you should
know about…
• Thickness testing
• Tracers
• Medical
• Industrial

• Smoke alarms
• Gamma treatment
• Medical
• Food
• Sterilising Equipment

• Dating
• Rocks
• Archaeological artefacts
(Carbon-14)
Thickness Testing:
A beta particle source is used to monitor the thickness of aluminium foil
during manufacturing:

• If the aluminium foil is too thick the

detector reading goes down and the
computer squeezes the rollers tighter.
• If the aluminium foil is too thin …

Note:
1. It must be a beta source because alphas never get through
aluminium and gammas always get through aluminium.
2. The half-life of the beta source must be long because otherwise as
the activity of the source gets less the computer will think that the
thickness is increasing so the thickness will not be consistent.
Medical Tracers

Leukaemia, before and after chemotherapy

Medical Tracers
Doctors may use radioactive chemicals
called tracers for medical imaging. Certain
chemicals concentrate in different damaged
or diseased parts of the body, and the
radiation concentrates with it. Radiation
detectors placed outside the body detect
the radiation emitted and, with the aid of
computers, build up an image of the inside
of the body.
Industrial Tracers: Gamma radiation is used for tracers. For
example a source is injected into an
underground pipe and if there is a leak the
radiation will remain coming from the
leaked area rather than being washed down
the pipe.

It can also be used to check for cracks in

welds.
 Smoke alarms:
Alpha radiation is used in smoke alarms. The alphas ionise air so that it conducts electricity
in a circuit. If smoke particles get in they stop the alpha particles, the air no longer
conducts and the alarm is triggered.

Note:
1. It must be alphas since betas and
gammas will not be affected by smoke
particles
2. It must have a long half-life otherwise it
would keep going off!
 Uses of Gamma Radiation
Radiotherapy (Medical treatment):

Gamma radiation is used in

the treatment of cancer. The
ionising radiation kills cancer
cells in a tumour.

Sterilising equipment:

Medical equipment can be sterilised

using gamma rays. This means that
equipment made out of plastic can be
sterilised. The traditional method,
using heat, would have destroyed it.
Prolonging the shelf life of food:

Even after it has been packaged, gamma rays

can be used to kill bacteria, mould and insects
in food. This process prolongs the shelf-life of
the food, but sometimes changes the taste.
 Radioactive Dating

(they like questions on this so I’ve put more detail in)

 Using radioactivity to determine
the age of an object.
• Carbon-14 is a radioactive isotope of Carbon.
• It is formed in the upper atmosphere at a constant rate, as
cosmic rays hit nitrogen gas molecules.
• The Carbon-14 atoms then bond with oxygen in the
atmosphere to form carbon dioxide.
• Carbon-14 decays by beta decay back into Nitrogen, with a
half-life of around 5730 years.
• The amount of Carbon-14 in the atmosphere has not changed
for thousands of years: even though it keeps decaying into
nitrogen new Carbon-14 molecules keep being formed.
• Only one in 850 billion carbon atoms are the isotope carbon-
14. The others are not radioactive.
 Using radioactivity to determine
the age of an object.
• Plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for
photosynthesis. Some of this carbon dioxide contains carbon-14
atoms.
• Animals then eat these plants.
• So all living things have carbon-14 in them in the same
proportions.
• When a living thing dies it stops taking in carbon-14.
• The number of carbon-14 atoms in the living thing will reduce with
time as they decay radioactively.
• By comparing how much carbon-14 is in your sample with how
much is in a living thing, the age of your sample can be estimated.
Forming Carbon-14
Things you can date with Things you can’t date with
Carbon Dating Carbon Dating
Wood, bone, cloth, Things that have never
animal or human lived – rocks, brick, metal
remains… etc…
Other limitations of carbon dating
Only 1 in 850 billion carbon Assuming the amount of carbon-
atoms is carbon-14 14 in the atmosphere is constant
After 9 or 10 half lives If the amount of carbon-
(about 50,000 years), the 14 has fluctuated at any
amount of radiation time this assumption isn’t
emitted is too tiny for an correct (e.g. flooding the
accurate count rate to be atmosphere with CO2
measured. from burning fossil fuels…)
Dating rocks
• All rocks contain trace elements of nuclear isotopes
from when the solar system was formed.

For example:
• Uranium 238 has a half life of 4500 million years.
• After a series of decays it turns into lead-206, which is
stable.
• As a rock gets older the proportion of lead to uranium
increases – finding out this proportion enables you to
estimate the age of the rock.
• Eg if half the uranium has turned into lead the rock is
4500 million years old.
Dating the oldest human…
• Lucy has been dated at Hi! I’m
approximately 3.2 million called Lucy!
years old.

• Her age was estimated by

analysing the radioactivity
of the rocks surrounding
her.
Dating Summary:
Animals and plants have a known proportion of
Carbon-14 (a radioisotope of Carbon) in their tissues.
When they die they stop taking Carbon in, then the
amount of Carbon-14 goes down at a known rate
through Beta-decay
(Carbon-14 has a half-life of 5700 years).
The age of the ancient organic materials can be found
by measuring the amount of Carbon-14 that is left.
Dating rocks:

Some rocks contain traces of uranium, which

decays by alpha decay. Uranium has a very
long half-life and so by measuring how much
uranium is left in a rock its approximate age
can be worked out.
 Questions – answer in your book with full sentences
1. Radioactive Carbon found in
living wood has a half-life of 5600
years. In a test:
i) A sample of living wood was
found to give a count rate of
160 counts per minute.
ii) A sample of ancient wood of
the same mass was found to
give a count rate of 40 counts
per minute.
A) Why was the count rate of the
sample of ancient wood much
less than the count rate of the
sample of living wood?
B) Calculate the age of the
sample of ancient wood.
2. A sample of ancient rock contains one atom
of lead for every atom of uranium. The
Uranium in the rock has a half-life of 4500
million years. I decays to form lead which is
not radioactive.
A) For every atom of uranium now present
in the rock, how many atoms of uranium
were present in the rock when it
formed?
B) Explain why the age of the rock is 4500
million years.
C) A different rock was found to have more
atoms of uranium than lead. What can
you say about the age of this rock?
D) Another sample of the rock contains 3
lead atoms for every one uranium atom.
Estimate the age of this sample.
E) The Universe is approximately 13.5
billion years old. What ratio of lead
atoms to uranium would you expect in a
rock of this age. Comment on why it may
be difficult to obtain a sample of rock of
this age.
 Questions – answer in your book with full sentences
1. Radioactive Carbon found in
living wood has a half-life of 5600
years. In a test:
i) A sample of living wood was
found to give a count rate of
160 counts per minute.
ii) A sample of ancient wood of
the same mass was found to
give a count rate of 40 counts
per minute.
A) Why was the count rate of the
sample of ancient wood much
less than the count rate of the
sample of living wood?
B) Calculate the age of the
sample of ancient wood.
A) The Carbon-14 content of the ancient
wood was much lower, due to the
Carbon-14 present in the wood decaying
over time. At the beginning the ancient
sample would have had the same count
rate as the living wood, but the rate has
reduced over time as the number of
radioactive Carbon-14 atoms in the wood
has reduced.
B) Original count rate: 160 counts per min
After one half life:
160/2 = 80 counts per min
After two half lives:
80/2 = 40 counts per min
So it has been two half lives.
One half life = 5600 years
So two half lives = 5600 X 2 = 11200 years
 Questions – answer in your book with full sentences
2. A) Two
2. A sample of ancient rock contains one atom B)
of lead for every atom of uranium. The
Uranium in the rock has a half-life of 4500
million years. I decays to form lead which is
not radioactive.
A) For every atom of uranium now present
in the rock, how many atoms of uranium
were present in the rock when it C)
formed?
B) Explain why the age of the rock is 4500
million years.
D)
C) A different rock was found to have more
atoms of uranium than lead. What can
you say about the age of this rock?
D) Another sample of the rock contains 3 E)
lead atoms for every one uranium atom.
Estimate the age of this sample.
E) The Universe is approximately 13.5
billion years old. What ratio of lead
atoms to uranium would you expect in a
rock of this age. Comment on why it may
be difficult to obtain a sample of rock of
this age.
It has been one half life – all of the
original uranium nuclei have been split
into two halves – half are now uranium
and half are now lead. This means it
has been one half life.
More Uranium =younger. As less than
half of the uranium atoms have
decayed into lead.
1 in every 4 atoms are uranium – ¼, so
it must have been two half lives = 9000
million years
1/8 would be uranium, so it would be a
ratio of 7:1. The rock wouldn’t have
been formed right at the beginning of
the universe as only Hydrogen and
Helium were formed. The heavier
elements like uranium and lead were
not formed until the death of the first