Question

Nitrogen-13 has a half-life of about 10 minutes. How much of a 320g sample of N-13 would remain after 40 minutes?

Answer 1

Answer:

The half-life of a radioisotope describes the amount of time it takes for said isotope to decay to one-half the original amount present in the sample.

Nitrogen-13, because it has a half-life of ten minutes, will experience two half-lives over the course of the twenty minute period. This means that 25% of the isotope will remain after this.

0.25 x 128mg = 32mg

32mg of Nitrogen-13 will remain after 20 minutes.