Technetium is a chemical element; it has symbol Tc and atomic number 43. It is the lightest element whose isotopes are all radioactive. Technetium and promethium are the only radioactive elements whose neighbours in the sense of atomic number are both stable. All available technetium is produced as a synthetic element. Naturally occurring technetium is a spontaneous fission product in uranium ore and thorium ore, or the product of neutron capture in molybdenum ores. This silvery gray, crystalline transition metal lies between manganese and rhenium in group 7 of the periodic table, and its chemical properties are intermediate between those of both adjacent elements. The most common naturally occurring isotope is 99Tc, in traces only.
Technetium
Periodisches System der Elemente (1904–1945, now at the Gdańsk University of Technology): lack of elements: 84 polonium Po (though discovered as early as in 1898 by Maria Sklodowska-Curie), 85 astatine At (1940, in Berkeley), 87 francium Fr (1939, in France), 93 neptunium Np (1940, in Berkeley) and other actinides and lanthanides. Old symbols for: 18 argon Ar (here: A), 43 technetium Tc (Ma, masurium), 54 xenon Xe (X), 86 radon, Rn (Em, emanation)
Chloro-containing coordination complexes of technetium (99Tc) in various oxidation states: Tc(III), Tc(IV), Tc(V), and Tc(VI) represented.
The first technetium-99m generator, unshielded, 1958. A Tc-99m pertechnetate solution is being eluted from Mo-99 molybdate bound to a chromatographic substrate
A chemical element is a chemical substance that cannot be broken down into other substances by chemical reactions. The basic particle that constitutes a chemical element is the atom. Chemical elements are identified by the number of protons in the nuclei of their atoms, known as the element's atomic number. For example, oxygen has an atomic number of 8, meaning that each oxygen atom has 8 protons in its nucleus. Two or more atoms of the same element can combine to form molecules, in contrast to chemical compounds or mixtures, which contain atoms of different elements. Atoms can be transformed into different elements in nuclear reactions, which change an atom's atomic number.
Estimated distribution of dark matter and dark energy in the universe. Only the fraction of the mass and energy in the universe labeled "atoms" is composed of chemical elements.
Portrait of Robert Boyle, c. 1740
Title page of The Sceptical Chymist, published in 1661
Portrait of Isaac Watts by John Shury, c. 1830