TITLE:
What Is Exactly the Scope of Nuclear Chemistry and Its Educational Position between Other Chemistry Branches
AUTHORS:
Turan Ünak
KEYWORDS:
Nuclear Chemistry, Radiochemistry, Radiation Chemistry, Radiopharmaceutical Chemistry, Undergraduate Education, Universities
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Chemical Engineering and Science,
Vol.7 No.1,
January
9,
2017
ABSTRACT: The undergraduate chemistry programs of different universities across the world
show clearly that nuclear chemistry education doesn’t have a permanent status in
chemistry curricula like classical sub-branches of chemistry which means like
organic, inorganic, analytical, physical, and biochemistry. Before starting the
evaluation of the status of nuclear chemistry education, first of all, nuclear chemistry
should correctly be defined and its position in chemistry education programs should
correctly be determined. In addition, a confusion of terminology or at least, a
terminological turbulence exists in this branch of chemistry about the use of terms
such as nuclear chemistry, radiochemistry, nuclear and radiochemistry. Also, the
scopes of the expressions used in this field such as radiochemistry, radiation
chemistry, radiopharmaceutical chemistry, etc. should be exactly defined and the
realtions between them should be clearly understood. Breifly, nuclear chemistry may
be difined as a large umbrella which covers all chemical studies related to radioactive
materials and nuclear radiation including the fine sub-branches such as radiochemistry,
radiation chemistry, radioanalytical chemistry, radiopharmaceutical chemistry,
environmental radiochemistry. If these are not done, the educational problems in
nuclear chemistry could not be correctly investigated and the remedies could not be
correctly determined.
