Question

Atoms of oxygen-16, oxygen-17, oxygen-18 are isotopes. Compare and contrast these three isotopes.

Answer 1

oxygen 16 has 8 protons and 8 neutrons, oxygen 17 has 8 protons and 9 neutrons, and oxygen 18 has 8 protons and 10 neutrons.

Oxygen-16 is a stable isotope of oxygen, having 8 neutrons and 8 protons in its nucleus. It has a mass of 15.99491461956 u. Oxygen-16 is the most abundant isotope of oxygen and accounts for 99.762% of oxygen's natural abundance.

Oxygen-17 is a low-abundance, natural, stable isotope of oxygen. As the only stable isotope of oxygen possessing a nuclear spin and a favorable characteristic of field-independent relaxation in liquid .

Oxygen-18 is a natural, stable isotope of oxygen and one of the environmental isotopes. ¹⁸ O is an important precursor for the production of fluorodeoxyglucose used in positron emission tomography.