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Understanding Mass Defect and Binding Energy

The document explains the concept of mass defect in atomic nuclei, which is the difference between the total mass of nucleons and the mass of the nucleus itself. It also discusses nuclear binding energy, the energy required to separate a nucleus into its constituent protons and neutrons, and introduces binding energy per nucleon as a useful measure. An example calculation for the binding energy of a nitrogen nucleus is provided, demonstrating the application of these concepts.

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10 views2 pages

Understanding Mass Defect and Binding Energy

The document explains the concept of mass defect in atomic nuclei, which is the difference between the total mass of nucleons and the mass of the nucleus itself. It also discusses nuclear binding energy, the energy required to separate a nucleus into its constituent protons and neutrons, and introduces binding energy per nucleon as a useful measure. An example calculation for the binding energy of a nitrogen nucleus is provided, demonstrating the application of these concepts.

Uploaded by

elangoorganic
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© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Mass Defect

According to nuclear particle experiments, the total mass of a nucleus (m nuc) is less than the sum of
the masses of its constituent nucleons (protons and neutrons). This mass difference is called mass
defect. Mass defect, Δm is given by
Δm=Zmp+(A−Z)mn−mnuc
where Zmp is the total mass of the protons,
(A−Z)mn is the total mass of the neutrons,
and mnuc is the mass of the nucleus

Binding energy
Nuclear binding energy is the energy required to separate an atomic nucleus completely
into its constituent protons and neutrons, or, equivalently, the energy that would be
liberated by combining individual protons and neutrons into a single nucleus.
Eb = ΔMc2

Binding Energy per Nucleon


A more useful measure of the binding between protons and neutrons is the binding energy per
nucleon or Ebn. It is the ratio of the binding energy of a nucleus to the number of nucleons in the
nucleus:
Ebn = Eb/A
where Eb is the binding energy of the nucleus and A is the number of nucleons in it. So, the binding
energy per nucleon is the average energy per nucleon needed to separate a nucleus into its
individual nucleons. Let’s look at a plot of the binding energy per nucleon versus the mass number
for a large number of nuclei:

Here is what we can observe:


 The maximum binding energy per nucleon is around 8.75 MeV for mass number (A) = 56.
 The minimum binding energy per nucleon is around 7.6 MeV for mass number (A) = 238.
 For 30 < A < 170, Ebn is nearly constant.
 Ebn is low for both light nuclei (A < 30) and heavy nuclei (A > 170)

Solved Example
Obtain the binding energy (in MeV) of a nitrogen nucleus (147N) , given m (147N) =14.00307u.

Solution: A nucleus of Nitrogen contains 7 protons and 7 neutrons. Therefore, the mass defect of
this nucleus is,
ΔM = 7mp + 7mn – m (147N)
Now,
Mass of a proton = mp = 1.007825u
Mass of a neutron = mn = 1.008665u
Therefore,
ΔM = (7 x 1.007825u) + (7 x 1.008665u) – 14.00307u = 0.11236u
Now, we know that 1u = 931.5 MeV/c2. Therefore,
ΔM = 0.11236 x 931.5 MeV/c2
The binding energy of the nucleus is,
Eb = ΔMc2
= 0.11236 x 931.5 (MeV/c2) x c2
= 0.11236 x 931.5 MeV
= 104.66334 MeV.

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