Radioactive Tracers

A chemical compound that has had one or more of its atoms replaced by a radionuclide is known as a Radioactive Tracer, radiotracer, or radioactive label. Because of its radioactive decay, radioactive tracer compounds can be used to investigate the mechanism of chemical reactions by tracing the path that the radioisotope takes from reactants to products. Thus, the radioactive version of isotopic labelling is radiolabelling or radiotracing. The use of radioactive tracers is commonly referred to as radioisotope feeding experiments in biological contexts. It has been extensively used to follow the course of biological reactions to employ radioisotopes of hydrogen, carbon, phosphorus, sulfur, and iodine. A radioactive tracer can also be employed as a flow tracer or to monitor a substance's distribution inside a natural system like a cell or tissue. In the process of producing natural gas, radioactive tracers are also utilised to locate cracks caused by hydraulic fracturing. A number of imaging methods, including technetium scans, SPECT scans, and PET scans, are based on radioactive tracers. Carbon-14, an isotope that occurs naturally, is used in radiocarbon dating as an isotopic label.