A small amount of americium-241 is used in smoke detectors. A stream of radiation flows between two electrodes. If smoke interrupts the stream, the alarm goes off. What feature of the radioisotope americium-241 would be most helpful for the smoke detector to work?

Respuesta :

Answer is: long half-life.

Americium-241 (²⁴¹Am) is a most common isotope of americium.

Americium-241 has a half-life of 432.2 years.

Half-life is the time required for a quantity (in this example number of radioactive nuclei of americium-241) to reduce to half its initial value and is independent of initial concentration.

Isotopes are substances that have the same atomic number and are majorly used in the fusion and fission process. The long half-life of the radioisotope americium-241 is beneficial to use in smoke detectors.

What are smoke detectors?

Smoke detectors are the fire safety devices that fire when the radioactive isotope like americium-241 gets disrupted by the smoke particles in the ionization chamber of the device resulting in an alarm going off.

Radioisotope americium-241 is the most common isotope of the parent species and is used majorly in fire safety devices as its half-life is 432.2 years. The long half-life of the isotope makes them most suitable for the smoke detectors.

Therefore, the long half-life of the radioisotope americium-241 makes them most helpful.

Learn more about radioisotope americium-241 here:

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