Isotopes of chlorine

Chlorine (Cl) has isotopes with mass numbers ranging from 32 g mol⁻¹ to 40 g mol⁻¹. There are two principal stable isotopes, ³⁵Cl (75.77%) and ³⁷Cl (24.23%), found in the relative proportions of 3:1 respectively, giving chlorine atoms in bulk an apparent atomic weight of 35.5.
Standard atomic mass: 35.453(2) u

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Chlorine-36 (³⁶Cl)

Main article: Chlorine-36

Trace amounts of radioactive ³⁶Cl exist in the environment, in a ratio of about 7x10⁻¹³ to 1 with stable isotopes. ³⁶Cl is produced in the atmosphere by spallation of ³⁶Ar by interactions with cosmic ray protons. In the subsurface environment, ³⁶Cl is generated primarily as a result of neutron capture by ³⁵Cl or muon capture by ⁴⁰Ca. ³⁶Cl decays to ³⁶S and to ³⁶Ar, with a combined half-life of 308,000 years. The half-life of this hydrophilic nonreactive isotope makes it suitable for geologic dating in the range of 60,000 to 1 million years. Additionally, large amounts of ³⁶Cl were produced by irradiation of seawater during atmospheric detonations of nuclear weapons between 1952 and 1958. The residence time of ³⁶Cl in the atmosphere is about 1 week. Thus, as an event marker of 1950s water in soil and ground water, ³⁶Cl is also useful for dating waters less than 50 years before the present. ³⁶Cl has seen use in other areas of the geological sciences, including dating ice and sediments.

Table

Notes

• Geologically exceptional samples are known in which the isotopic composition lies outside the reported range. The uncertainty in the atomic mass may exceed the stated value for such specimens.
• Commercially available materials may have been subjected to an undisclosed or inadvertent isotopic fractionation. Substantial deviations from the given mass and composition can occur.
• Values marked # are not purely derived from experimental data, but at least partly from systematic trends. Spins with weak assignment arguments are enclosed in parentheses.
• Uncertainties are given in concise form in parentheses after the corresponding last digits. Uncertainty values denote one standard deviation, except isotopic composition and standard atomic mass from IUPAC which use expanded uncertainties.

References

• Isotope masses from Ame2003 Atomic Mass Evaluation by G. Audi, A.H. Wapstra, C. Thibault, J. Blachot and O. Bersillon in Nuclear Physics A729 (2003).
• Isotopic compositions and standard atomic masses from Atomic weights of the elements. Review 2000 (IUPAC Technical Report). Pure Appl. Chem. Vol. 75, No. 6, pp. 683-800, (2003) and Atomic Weights Revised (2005).
• Half-life, spin, and isomer data selected from these sources. Editing notes on this article's talk page.
  • Audi, Bersillon, Blachot, Wapstra. The Nubase2003 evaluation of nuclear and decay properties, Nuc. Phys. A 729, pp. 3-128 (2003).
  • National Nuclear Data Center, Brookhaven National Laboratory. Information extracted from the NuDat 2.1 database (retrieved Sept. 2005).
  • David R. Lide (ed.), Norman E. Holden in CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 85th Edition, online version. CRC Press. Boca Raton, Florida (2005). Section 11, Table of the Isotopes.