Natural gallium

Gallium

Gallium is a chemical element that has the symbol Ga and atomic number 31. Elemental gallium does not occur in nature, but as the gallium salt in trace amounts in bauxite and zinc ores. A soft silvery metallic poor metal, elemental gallium is a brittle solid at low temperatures. As it liquefies...

(Ga) consists of a mixture of two stable isotope

Isotope

Isotopes are variants of atoms of a particular chemical element, which have differing numbers of neutrons. Atoms of a particular element by definition must contain the same number of protons but may have a distinct number of neutrons which differs from atom to atom, without changing the designation...

s: gallium-69 and gallium-71. The most commercially important radioisotopes are gallium-67 and gallium-68.

Gallium-67 (half-life 3.3 days) is a gamma-emitting isotope (the gamma emitted immediately after electron-capture) which is used in standard nuclear medical imaging, in procedures usually referred to as gallium scan

Gallium scan

A gallium scan or gallium 67 scan is a type of nuclear medicine study that uses a radioactive tracer to obtain images of a specific type of tissue, or disease state of tissue. Gallium salts like gallium citrate and gallium nitrate are used. The form of salt is not important, since it is the freely...

s. It is usually used as the free ion, Ga³⁺. It is the longest-lived radioisotope of gallium.

The shorter-lived gallium-68 (half-life 68 minutes) is a positron

Positron

The positron or antielectron is the antiparticle or the antimatter counterpart of the electron. The positron has an electric charge of +1e, a spin of ½, and has the same mass as an electron...

-emitting isotope which is generated from germanium-68 in gallium-68 generator

Gallium-68 generator

A gallium-68 generator is a device used to extract the positron-emitting isotope 68Ga of gallium from a source of decaying germanium-68. The parent isotope 68Ge has a half-life of 271 days and can be easily sent to hospitals within the generator, where it is storable for almost a year...

s, for use in a small minority of diagnostic PET scans. For this use, it is usually attached as a tracer to a carrier molecule, which gives the resulting radiopharmaceutical a different tissue-uptake specificity from the ionic Ga-67 radioisotope normally used in standard gallium scans.

Standard atomic mass: 69.723(1) u

Table

nuclide symbol	Z(p Proton The proton is a subatomic particle with the symbol or and a positive electric charge of 1 elementary charge. One or more protons are present in the nucleus of each atom, along with neutrons. The number of protons in each atom is its atomic number.... )	N(n Neutron The neutron is a subatomic hadron particle which has the symbol or , no net electric charge and a mass slightly larger than that of a proton. With the exception of hydrogen, nuclei of atoms consist of protons and neutrons, which are therefore collectively referred to as nucleons. The number of... )	isotopic mass (u)	half-life	decay mode(s)Abbreviations: EC: Electron capture Electron capture Electron capture is a process in which a proton-rich nuclide absorbs an inner atomic electron and simultaneously emits a neutrino... IT: Isomeric transition Isomeric transition An isomeric transition is a radioactive decay process that involves emission of a gamma ray from an atom where the nucleus is in an excited metastable state, referred to in its excited state, as a nuclear isomer....	daughter isotope(s)Bold for stable isotopes, bold italics for nearly-stable isotopes (half-life longer than the age of the universe Age of the universe The age of the universe is the time elapsed since the Big Bang posited by the most widely accepted scientific model of cosmology. The best current estimate of the age of the universe is 13.75 ± 0.13 billion years within the Lambda-CDM concordance model... )	nuclear spin	representative isotopic composition (mole fraction)	range of natural variation (mole fraction)
	excitation energy
56Ga	31	25	55.99491(28)#		p Proton emission Proton emission is a type of radioactive decay in which a proton is ejected from a nucleus. Proton emission can occur from high-lying excited states in a nucleus following a beta decay, in which case the process is known as beta-delayed proton emission, or can occur from the ground state of very...	55Zn	3+#
57Ga	31	26	56.98293(28)#		p	56Zn	1/2-#
58Ga	31	27	57.97425(23)#		p	57Zn	2+#
59Ga	31	28	58.96337(18)#		p	58Zn	3/2-#
60Ga	31	29	59.95706(12)#	70(10) ms	β+ Beta decay In nuclear physics, beta decay is a type of radioactive decay in which a beta particle is emitted from an atom. There are two types of beta decay: beta minus and beta plus. In the case of beta decay that produces an electron emission, it is referred to as beta minus , while in the case of a...	60Zn	(2+)
61Ga	31	30	60.94945(6)	168(3) ms	β+	61Zn	3/2-
62Ga	31	31	61.944175(30)	116.18(4) ms	β+	62Zn	0+
63Ga	31	32	62.9392942(14)	32.4(5) s	β+	63Zn	(3/2-)
64Ga	31	33	63.9368387(22)	2.627(12) min	β+	64Zn	0(+#)
64mGa	42.85(8) keV			21.9(7) µs			2+
65Ga	31	34	64.9327348(9)	15.2(2) min	β+	65Zn	3/2-
66Ga	31	35	65.931589(3)	9.49(7) h	β+	66Zn	0+
67GaUsed in medical imaging Gallium scan A gallium scan or gallium 67 scan is a type of nuclear medicine study that uses a radioactive tracer to obtain images of a specific type of tissue, or disease state of tissue. Gallium salts like gallium citrate and gallium nitrate are used. The form of salt is not important, since it is the freely...	31	36	66.9282017(14)	3.2612(6) d	EC Electron capture Electron capture is a process in which a proton-rich nuclide absorbs an inner atomic electron and simultaneously emits a neutrino...  (deexcitation gamma used clinically)	67Zn	3/2-
68GaMedically-useful Gallium-68 generator A gallium-68 generator is a device used to extract the positron-emitting isotope 68Ga of gallium from a source of decaying germanium-68. The parent isotope 68Ge has a half-life of 271 days and can be easily sent to hospitals within the generator, where it is storable for almost a year...  radioisotope	31	37	67.9279801(16)	67.71(9) min	β+	68Zn	1+
69Ga	31	38	68.9255736(13)	Stable			3/2-	0.60108(9)
70Ga	31	39	69.9260220(13)	21.14(3) min	β- (99.59)	70Ge	1+
					EC Electron capture Electron capture is a process in which a proton-rich nuclide absorbs an inner atomic electron and simultaneously emits a neutrino...  (0.41%)	70Zn
71Ga	31	40	70.9247013(11)	Stable			3/2-	0.39892(9)
72Ga	31	41	71.9263663(11)	14.095(3) h	β-	72Ge	3-
72mGa	119.66(5) keV			39.68(13) ms	IT Isomeric transition An isomeric transition is a radioactive decay process that involves emission of a gamma ray from an atom where the nucleus is in an excited metastable state, referred to in its excited state, as a nuclear isomer....	72Ga	(0+)
73Ga	31	42	72.9251747(18)	4.86(3) h	β-	73Ge	3/2-
74Ga	31	43	73.926946(4)	8.12(12) min	β-	74Ge	(3-)
74mGa	59.571(14) keV			9.5(10) s			(0)
75Ga	31	44	74.9265002(26)	126(2) s	β-	75Ge	(3/2)-
76Ga	31	45	75.9288276(21)	32.6(6) s	β-	76Ge	(2+,3+)
77Ga	31	46	76.9291543(26)	13.2(2) s	β-	77Ge	(3/2-)
78Ga	31	47	77.9316082(26)	5.09(5) s	β-	78Ge	(3+)
79Ga	31	48	78.93289(11)	2.847(3) s	β- (99.911%)	79mGe	(3/2-)#
					β-, n Neutron emission Neutron emission is a type of radioactive decay of atoms containing excess neutrons, in which a neutron is simply ejected from the nucleus. Two examples of isotopes which emit neutrons are helium-5 and beryllium-13... (.089%)	78Ge
80Ga	31	49	79.93652(13)	1.697(11) s	β- (99.11%)	80Ge	(3)
					β-, n (.89%)	79Ge
81Ga	31	50	80.93775(21)	1.217(5) s	β- (88.11%)	81mGe	(5/2-)
					β-, n (11.89%)	80Ge
82Ga	31	51	81.94299(32)#	0.599(2) s	β- (78.5%)	82Ge	(1,2,3)
					β-, n (21.5%)	81Ge
83Ga	31	52	82.94698(32)#	308(1) ms	β- (60%)	83Ge	3/2-#
					β-, n (40%)	82Ge
84Ga	31	53	83.95265(43)#	0.085(10) s	β-, n (70%)	83Ge
					β- (30%)	84Ge
85Ga	31	54	84.95700(54)#	50# ms [>300 ns]			3/2-#
86Ga	31	55	85.96312(86)#	30# ms [>300 ns]

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