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Colbalt-60 has half-life of about 5 years, How many grams of a 300 g sample will remain after 20 years?

2 Answers

1 vote

The half-life is the time it takes for any amount of Cobalt-60 to decay to half the starting amount.

20 years is 4 times the half-life of 5 years. So there would be

(300 g) / 2⁴ = 18.75 g

remaining after 20 years.

In other words, after 5 years, 300 g decays to 150 g.

After another 5 years (total 10 years), 150 g decays to 75 g.

After another 5 years (total 15 years), 75 g decays to 37.5 g.

After another 5 years (total 20 years), 37.5 g decays to 18.75 g.

User Mitchell McKenna
by
4.7k points
3 votes

Answer:

After 20 years 18.75 gm of sample will remain.

Explanation:

User Erik Oosterwaal
by
5.1k points
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