What are first order half life units?

Aedan Tyler

Aedan Tyler

Answered question

2022-05-15

What are first order half life units?

Answer & Explanation

Arturo Wallace

Arturo Wallace

Beginner2022-05-16Added 17 answers

A half-life is just a certain amount of time for half of something to go away / react. Therefore, it has the same units as time does. This does not at all depend on the order of the reaction with respect to the reactant.
Berghofaei0e

Berghofaei0e

Beginner2022-05-17Added 3 answers

Explanation:
Half life is the time for the concentration of substance to decrease to one-half its original concentration. For some reactions and decay processes, the time for 1 half-life can be in very small fractions of time while some are very large time intervals and expressed in powers of 10.
Examples*:
=> for the isotope Nitrogen-10 (N-10), the half-life can be as small as
2 × 10 22 sec. This could be expressed as 2 × 10 12 picoseconds (ps). Both are the same time interval.
=> for the isotope Potassium-40 (K-40), the half-life is reported to be 1.3 × 10 9
years. While 'years' is the most widely accepted unit, one could express the half-life time interval in Mega-years by dividing by 1 × 10 6 years per Mega-year =>
1.3 × 10 3 Mega-years. Again, both are the same time intervals.
The point is, although 'years' and 'seconds' are most widely accepted, the 'application' and one's 'preference' can dictate the units for half-life. I'm not sure if there is an accepted rule for this. Maybe someone else can add to this for more clairity.

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