Element 43 · Transition Metal
Technetium
The first artificially produced element — technetium is purely synthetic and has no scrap market.
Element Facts
SYMBOL
Tc
ATOMIC NO.
43
ATOMIC WEIGHT
98
CATEGORY
Transition Metal
PERIOD
Period 5
GROUP
Group 7
Origins
Technetium was predicted by Mendeleev as “eka-manganese” and became the first element to be artificially synthesised, in 1937 by Carlo Perrier and Emilio Segrè at the University of Palermo. They used molybdenum foil that had been irradiated in a cyclotron at Berkeley. Named from the Greek “technetos” meaning artificial. It was later discovered to occur naturally in tiny traces in uranium ores (from spontaneous fission). Technetium-99m became the cornerstone of nuclear medicine from the 1960s.
Key Properties
Technetium is element 43, the lightest element with no stable isotopes. Despite Mendeleev predicting its existence in 1871, it was not isolated until 1937 by Carlo Perrier and Emilio Segrè from cyclotron-irradiated molybdenum — making it the first synthetic element.
Modern Applications
Technetium-99m is the most widely used medical radioisotope worldwide, used in over 30 million diagnostic imaging procedures annually for bone scans, cardiac perfusion imaging, and other diagnostics. Half-life of just 6 hours.
At the Yard
Why QuickStop Metals doesn’t buy Technetium:
Technetium is radioactive and exists only in nuclear facilities. No scrap market — managed entirely under nuclear regulation.
Market Value
No standard commercial market. Technetium-99m — produced in nuclear reactors from molybdenum-99 — is the most widely used medical radioisotope in the world, used in over 30 million diagnostic scans annually. It is a medical material dispensed by licensed nuclear pharmacies, not traded at scrap yards.