My periodic table poster is now available! Technetium is totally out of place. It sits smack in the middle of the most solid group of elements around, the transition metals. Virtually all the transition metals are nice stable metals, solid citizens of the periodic table. And here technetium is radioactive! You've got to go a very long way up the list of atomic numbers before you run into another radioactive one (all elements above 83 are radioactive, but below that only 61 promethium and 43 technetium have no stable isotopes). Why technetium is radioactive has to do with the way that protons and neutrons fit together in the nucleus. It's reasonably well understood why technetium can't find a stable configuration, and I think it's fair to say that it boils down to rotten luck. Here's an article about it. Technetium is used for medical imaging, though this application is less popular now than it used to be. It can also be used to inhibit corrosion in steel, though of course it makes the steel radioactive. Compare at other websites: periodictable.com Wikipedia WebElements Museum Display Minerals Translations and Etymology Science Fiction (Main Site) Comics Collections: Minerals, Alloys, and Compounds Elements Popular in Collections Poster Samples Elements I Need Samples Of Elements with External Samples Samples with Rotatable Images Samples with High Resolution Spin Movies Atlas of technetium bone scans. This may be as close as I ever come to a technetium sample, given that it's highly radioactive and highly regulated. I do hope to have a real sample some day, but in the mean time, this is a nice book written by a couple of people who seem to have plenty. It's from1978, and from the sound it technetium bone scans were pretty new at the time. I chose this sample to represent its element in my Photographic Periodic Table Poster. The sample photograph includes text exactly as it appears in the poster, which you are encouraged to buy a copy of. Source: eBay seller mycomicsrock Contributor: Theodore Gray Acquired: 5 September, 2002 Text Updated: 4 May, 2007 Price: $1.25 Size: 8" Purity: 0% Sample Group: Medical Sample from the RGB Set. The Red Green and Blue company in England sells a very nice element collection in several versions. Max Whitby, the director of the company, very kindly donated a complete set to the periodic table table. To learn more about the set you can visit my page about element collecting for a general description or the company's website which includes many photographs and pricing details. I have two photographs of each sample from the set: One taken by me and one from the company. You can see photographs of all the samples displayed in a periodic table format: my pictures or their pictures. Or you can see both side-by-side with bigger pictures in numerical order. The picture on the left was taken by me. Here is the company's version (there is some variation between sets, so the pictures sometimes show different variations of the samples): Source: Max Whitby of RGB Contributor: Max Whitby of RGB Acquired: 25 January, 2003 Text Updated: 11 August, 2007 Price: Donated Size: 0.2" Purity: 0% Sample from the Everest Set. Up until the early 1990's a company in Russia sold a periodic table collection with element samples. At some point their American distributor sold off the remaining stock to a man who is now selling them on eBay. The samples (except gases) weigh about 0.25 grams each, and the whole set comes in a very nice wooden box with a printed periodic table in the lid. Radioactive elements like this one are represented in this particular set by a non-radioactive dummy powder, which doesn't look anything like the real element. To learn more about the set you can visit my page about element collecting for a general description and information about how to buy one, or you can see photographs of all the samples from the set displayed on my website in a periodic table layout or with bigger pictures in numerical order. Source: Rob Accurso Contributor: Rob Accurso Acquired: 7 February, 2003 Text Updated: 29 January, 2009 Price: Donated Size: 0.2" Purity: 0% Medical vial. I'm getting closer. I still don't have any actual technetium, but unlike my other samples that don't contain any technetium, this one actually used to contain technetium. Though it does not anymore. Source: Jason Cohen Contributor: Jason Cohen Acquired: 25 September, 2006 Text Updated: 11 March, 2007 Price: Donated Size: 1.5" Purity: 0% Sample Group: Medical Lead pig for technetium. I've listed a set of six similar lead pigs under technetium basically out of desperation. They have no technetium in them, but they used to. They are labeled with the names of various different radio-pharmaceutical preparations used to deliver doses of Tc-99m (metastable Tc-99, an excited state of the Tc-99 nucleus with a half life of just a few hours). Source: Anonymous Contributor: Theodore Gray Acquired: 11 August, 2007 Text Updated: 8 December, 2007 Price: Confidential Size: 3" Purity: 0% Sample Group: Medical Lead pig for technetium. I've listed a set of six similar lead pigs under technetium basically out of desperation. They have no technetium in them, but they used to. They are labeled with the names of various different radio-pharmaceutical preparations used to deliver doses of Tc-99m (metastable Tc-99, an excited state of the Tc-99 nucleus with a half life of just a few hours). Source: Anonymous Contributor: Theodore Gray Acquired: 11 August, 2007 Text Updated: 8 December, 2007 Price: Confidential Size: 3" Purity: 0% Sample Group: Medical Lead pig for technetium. I've listed a set of six similar lead pigs under technetium basically out of desperation. They have no technetium in them, but they used to. They are labeled with the names of various different radio-pharmaceutical preparations used to deliver doses of Tc-99m (metastable Tc-99, an excited state of the Tc-99 nucleus with a half life of just a few hours). Source: Anonymous Contributor: Theodore Gray Acquired: 11 August, 2007 Text Updated: 8 December, 2007 Price: Confidential Size: 3" Purity: 0% Sample Group: Medical Lead pig for technetium. I've listed a set of six similar lead pigs under technetium basically out of desperation. They have no technetium in them, but they used to. They are labeled with the names of various different radio-pharmaceutical preparations used to deliver doses of Tc-99m (metastable Tc-99, an excited state of the Tc-99 nucleus with a half life of just a few hours). Source: Anonymous Contributor: Theodore Gray Acquired: 11 August, 2007 Text Updated: 8 December, 2007 Price: Confidential Size: 3" Purity: 0% Sample Group: Medical Lead pig for technetium. I've listed a set of six similar lead pigs under technetium basically out of desperation. They have no technetium in them, but they used to. They are labeled with the names of various different radio-pharmaceutical preparations used to deliver doses of Tc-99m (metastable Tc-99, an excited state of the Tc-99 nucleus with a half life of just a few hours). Source: Anonymous Contributor: Theodore Gray Acquired: 11 August, 2007 Text Updated: 8 December, 2007 Price: Confidential Size: 3" Purity: 0% Sample Group: Medical Lead pig for technetium. I've listed a set of six similar lead pigs under technetium basically out of desperation. They have no technetium in them, but they used to. They are labeled with the names of various different radio-pharmaceutical preparations used to deliver doses of Tc-99m (metastable Tc-99, an excited state of the Tc-99 nucleus with a half life of just a few hours). Source: Anonymous Contributor: Theodore Gray Acquired: 11 August, 2007 Text Updated: 8 December, 2007 Price: Confidential Size: 3" Purity: 0% Sample Group: Medical Technetium pig cart. This small wheeled cart is filled with tungsten and lead pigs used to hold technetium (and perhaps other) radioactive medicines in syringes. The handle is longer than you might think is necessary. This is to keep the nurse or technician far away from the contents while pushing it down the hall. Imagine someone showing up in your hospital room with a cart she's keeping at several arms lengths away, containing a substance she proposes to inject into you. The tall pig in the center is especially interesting. It has a looooong rod reaching from the top down into the heavily shielded section at the bottom. Finger hooks at the top of the rod let you haul the contents up from the pit without ever getting your hand closer than about 12" to the syringes held at the end of the rod. This lid is over an inch thick, because radiation emitted in a vertical direction needs to be stopped too. Source: Anonymous Contributor: Theodore Gray Acquired: 28 February, 2009 Text Updated: 1 March, 2009 Price: Confidential Size: 18" Purity: 0% Milking syringe. This is a syringe used to wash technetium out of a molybdenum-99 based technetium generator. Source: Anonymous Contributor: Anonymous Acquired: 24 March, 2009 Text Updated: 24 March, 2009 Price: Donated Size: 3" Purity: 0% Technetium plated copper. Copper foil plated with Tc-98. Source: Max Whitby of RGB Contributor: Max Whitby of RGB Acquired: 29 April, 2009 Text Updated: 30 April, 2009 Price: Donated Size: 0.25" Purity: <0.1% Photo Card Deck of the Elements. In late 2006 I published a photo periodic table and it's been selling well enough to encourage me to make new products. This one is a particularly neat one: A complete card deck of the elements with one big five-inch (12.7cm) square card for every element. If you like this site and all the pictures on it, you'll love this card deck. And of course if you're wondering what pays for all the pictures and the internet bandwidth to let you look at them, the answer is people buying my posters and cards decks. Hint hint. Source: Theodore Gray Contributor: Theodore Gray Acquired: 19 November, 2008 Text Updated: 21 November, 2008 Price: $35 Size: 5" Composition: HHeLiBeBCNOFNeNaMg AlSiPSClArKCaScTiVCrMn FeCoNiCuZnGaGeAsSeBrKr RbSrYZrNbMoTcRuRhPdAg CdInSnSbTeIXeCsBaLaCePr NdPmSmEuGdTbDyHoErTm YbLuHfTaWReOsIrPtAuHgTl PbBiPoAtRnFrRaAcThPaUNp PuAmCmBkCfEsFmMdNoLrRf DbSgBhHsMtDsRgUubUutUuq UupUuhUusUuo Pitchblende. In 1962 it was reported that traces of technetium could be detected in samples of natural pitchblende from Africa. Source: Jensan Scientifics Contributor: Theodore Gray Acquired: 30 April, 2009 Text Updated: 1 May, 2009 Price: Anonymous Size: 1" Composition: UO2+Tc Technetium generator. (External Sample) A lead-shielded cylinder containing molybdenum-99, which decays into technetium-99m. When the technetium is needed, sterile saline solution is injected into the top of this device, also known as a moly cow, washing some of the technetium into a waiting vial underneath. Museum's listing of this item. Location: Oak Ridge Health Physics Museum Photographed: 15 April, 2009 Text Updated: 15 April, 2009 Size: 12" Purity: 0%    My periodic table poster is now available!