This article is supported by WikiProject Elements, which gives a central approach to the chemical elements and their isotopes on Wikipedia. Please participate by editing this article, or visit the project page for more details.ElementsWikipedia:WikiProject ElementsTemplate:WikiProject Elementschemical elements articles
>> none are stable other than the fully ionized state of 97Tc. This is a strange claim whose support by citation [4] is not clear to me. Could a knowledgeable person please validate and elaborate on this? 2601:647:4200:CD91:ADFD:B53E:618C:800 (talk) 04:45, 14 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I cannot find it in there either. The reason behind it, though, is that the decay energy going from 97Tc to 97Mo is so small that positron emission is energetically impossible. This leaves only electron capture as a possible decay mode, so when the atom is fully ionised, it has no way to decay. Double sharp (talk) 14:51, 30 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
So... this would theoretically be true, in a fully-ionized high-temperature plasma, but it's never been observed, and the ionization energy would likely be well into the GJ/mol range. Do I have that correct?
I wouldn't call it OR because it's a straightforward conclusion from NUBASE and WP:CALC. NUBASE only lists electron capture as a decay mode and this can be verified by calculating the decay energy, and electron capture is only possible when there are electrons to capture, which is obviously not the case in fully ionized atoms.
However, since it's not in ref 4 or easily verifiable elsewhere (no source I can find directly describes it), I would suggest removing it from the lead and adding it to the isotopes section. Since this claim is not directly verified but rather a straightforward conclusion from other sources, and we don't deal with fully ionized Tc every day (the few applications of Tc use neutral 99Tc or 99mTc AFAIK), it's too much weight for a weakly sourced statement as is. Removing it from the article altogether is also a possibility (I would not oppose that), but it's more noteworthy for Tc than for other elements that also have stable isotopes, so there's a (fair) argument to keep it as well. ComplexRational (talk) 15:58, 5 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Seems a little more than a "calculation" to me. For example, is it obvious that the fully ionized element can't capture free electrons, and decay that way? It's an interesting bit of trivia but I think it needs a source. --Trovatore (talk) 18:54, 5 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I guess it could, but since that involves particles outside the system, I don't think that would make it not count as "stable". Otherwise, isn't 1H unstable because it can capture a proton and go through the proton-proton chain reaction?
Although that makes me wonder about 7Be. As an electron capturer produced in Big Bang nucleosynthesis, it couldn't really capture its own electrons until recombination four hundred thousand years later. But the nucleus could surely capture a passing free electron... Double sharp (talk) 01:13, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The article states that Technetium is found in the Periodic Table "between" Molybdenum and Rhenium. Although that is technically true, the article later states that Technetium is "adjacent" to these two elements. That is not accurate. Technetium is immediately "adjacent" to Molybdenum and Ruthenium in the Periodic Table. Rhenium is to the right of Ruthenium. 96.224.252.16 (talk) 19:52, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@96.224.252.16 Sorry for the error. l carelessly confused Molybdenum with Manganese, and Rhodium with Rhenium. Please disregard my foolish mistake. 96.224.252.16 (talk) 20:01, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
^Nystrom, A.; Thoennessen, M. (2012). "Discovery of yttrium, zirconium, niobium, technetium, and ruthenium isotopes". Atomic Data and Nuclear Data Tables. 98 (2): 95–119. doi:10.1016/j.adt.2011.12.002.