Normally fast processes in groundwater, porewater are studied using 222Rm and 223Ra, 224Ra but in my case I need a shorter life isotopes to tracer processes happening in some hours.
Do you have an idea of some articles, studies etc. applying other isotopes (with short decay life)?
Dear Azzurra,
Different isotopes can be used for short time scale processes because they are not limited to the time scale unless you use them for dating purposes. It would be easier to answer your question if you can describe what kind of processes you are dealing with.
Well,
Phosphorus isotopes:
P has 23 known isotopes with masses ranging from 24P to 46P. Of these isotopes, only one stable isotope is 31P. The longest-lived radioactive phosphorus isotope is a phosphorus-33 isotope with a half-life of 25.34 days and a phosphorus-32 isotope with a half-life of 14.263 days. The rest of the isotopes have half-lives of less than 2.5 minutes, and most are less than one second. The least isotope of phosphorus is a phosphorus-25 isotope with a half-life of less than 30 nanoseconds.
From the analysis of δ15N of N2 and NO3, along with techniques that determine the age of water such as δ18O, the phenomenon of varying concentrations of NO3 can be elucidated in the provincial agriculture drain canals and determine the duration of natural treatment processes for the removal of NO3 fertilizers from groundwater.
At some practical point it is not realistic to use short lived radioisotope tracers simply due to their decay before providing data. A limitation is also your ability to analyse the samples quickly. Perhaps it is useful to focus on the question or process of interest and look for other possible tracers that could be generated or depleted during the process and try to utilize those at a suitable scale.
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