Isotopes of chromium

Naturally occurring chromium (₂₄Cr) is composed of four stable isotopes; ⁵⁰Cr, ⁵²Cr, ⁵³Cr, and ⁵⁴Cr with ⁵²Cr being the most abundant (83.789% natural abundance). ⁵⁰Cr is suspected of decaying by β⁺β⁺ to ⁵⁰Ti with a half-life of (more than) 1.8×10¹⁷ years. Twenty-two radioisotopes, all of which are entirely synthetic, have been characterized, the most stable being ⁵¹Cr with a half-life of 27.7 days. All of the remaining radioactive isotopes have half-lives that are less than 24 hours and the majority of these have half-lives that are less than 1 minute. This element also has two meta states, ^45mCr, the more stable one, and ^59mCr, the least stable isotope or isomer.

⁵³Cr is the radiogenic decay product of ⁵³Mn. Chromium isotopic contents are typically combined with manganese isotopic contents and have found application in isotope geology. Mn-Cr isotope ratios reinforce the evidence from ²⁶Al and ¹⁰⁷Pd for the early history of the Solar System. Variations in ⁵³Cr/⁵²Cr and Mn/Cr ratios from several meteorites indicate an initial ⁵³Mn/⁵⁵Mn ratio that suggests Mn-Cr isotope systematics must result from in-situ decay of ⁵³Mn in differentiated planetary bodies. Hence ⁵³Cr provides additional evidence for nucleosynthetic processes immediately before coalescence of the Solar System. The same isotope is preferentially involved in certain leaching reactions, thereby allowing its abundance in seawater sediments to be used as a proxy for atmospheric oxygen concentrations.^[4]

The isotopes of chromium range from ⁴²Cr to ⁷⁰Cr. The primary decay mode before the most abundant stable isotope, ⁵²Cr, is electron capture and the primary mode after is beta decay.