Stable Isotope
Non-radioactive forms of
atoms are stable isotopes. While not releasing radiation, their specific properties allow them to be used in a wide range of applications including water and soil management ,
environmental studies, nutritional assessment studies, and forensics. Stable isotopes can be used, for example in water samples, to measure their amounts and proportions in samples. Naturally occurring stable isotopes of water and other substances are used to trace the water, carbon and nitrogen cycles of origin, history, sources, sinks and interactions. Also, stable isotopes can be used as tracers that are deliberately added to a system to be studied, for example in agriculture or nutrition. They must be separated for this purpose, using highly sophisticated techniques such as mass spectrometry. Although deuterium H-2, an isotope twice as heavy as hydrogen, is primarily used in nutritional science, nitrogen-15 is the most commonly used
stable isotope in agriculture. There are also many other stable isotopes which are increasingly being used. The relative abundance of these stable isotopes can be experimentally determined (isotope analysis), resulting in an isotope ratio which can be used as a research tool. These stable isotopes may potentially include the radiogenic daughter products of radioactive decay, used in radiometric dating.
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