Are Radioisotopes and Radionuclides the Same Thing?

[oksuz_]

Hi,

Is there any difference between a radioisotope and a radionuclide? I checked some sources on the internet and figured out that they can be used interchangeably. Is this so? If so, why are there two different words for the same thing?

Thank you.

 

[Gene Naden]

Wikipedia treats them interchangeably, both as an unstable atom. The term "isotope", a variant of a chemical element, denotes a relationship between two nuclei types. Two atoms are isotopes of one another if they have the same atomic number, i.e. the same number of protons in the nucleus. Thus "radioisotope" and "radionuclide" have slightly different meanings, since "radioisotope" makes reference to the relationship between two atoms that have similar chemical properties.

 

[oksuz_]

Thank you for your response.

While I was searching these term, I bumped into also NRC website which also gives them as the same thing.

https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-ref/glossary/radioisotope-radionuclide.html