Question

A deuterium is:
A. an electron with a positive charge
B. a nucleus having two protons
C. a nucleus containing a neutron and two protons
D. a nucleus containing a neutron and a proton

Answer 1

Hint: Hydrogen has many isotopes and deuterium is one of them. It is one of the two stable isotopes of hydrogen . It doesn’t have electrons. We know that Protium is the most common isotope of hydrogen that has no neutrons and one proton.

Step by step answer:
We will discuss some of the facts of Deuterium:
- A nucleus of deuterium is termed as deuteron or deuton.
- It is found that this isotope of hydrogen in the form of heavy water is present in very small quantities in the oceans, but these are not easy to extract. - Deuterium is a stable atomic species, it is also found to be non- radioactive. Deuterium has an atomic weight of about 2.014.
- Deuterium got its name from the Greek word deuterons which means “second”. It refers to the two particles that are a neutron and a proton, which make up the nucleus of a deuterium atom.
- D or 2H is the chemical symbol which is used for deuterium.
-On an estimation it is found that approximately 156.25 ppm of deuterium is present in the oceans which are equal to one atom in 6,400 of hydrogen.
- Deuterium is found to react more slowly than ordinary hydrogen, this distinguishes the two forms of hydrogen. Because of this property of deuterium among others, deuterium is extensively used as an isotopic tracer in investigations of various chemical reactions involving hydrogen.
- Hence, we can conclude that correct option is (D), that is deuterium is a nucleus containing a neutron and a proton

Additional information:
- There are lots of uses of deuterium are being found, some of them are:
- It is widely used in various reactors and has their application in military, scientific fields and in military also.
- In nuclear fusion reactors, it is used as a tracer and it is responsible to slow down neutrons in heavy water moderated fission reactors.
- Deuterium is most commonly used in hydrogen nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (proton NMR)

Note:
- It is found that Deuterium isotope is heavier than protium as it contains a neutron and therefore it is also called as heavy hydrogen, whereas in protium neutron is absent.