Isotopes of palladium

Natural palladium (₄₆Pd) is composed of six stable isotopes, ¹⁰²Pd, ¹⁰⁴Pd, ¹⁰⁵Pd, ¹⁰⁶Pd, ¹⁰⁸Pd, and ¹¹⁰Pd, although ¹⁰²Pd and ¹¹⁰Pd are theoretically unstable. The most stable radioisotopes are ¹⁰⁷Pd with a half-life of 6.5 million years, ¹⁰³Pd with a half-life of 17 days, and ¹⁰⁰Pd with a half-life of 3.63 days. Twenty-three other radioisotopes have been characterized with atomic weights ranging from 90.949 u (⁹¹Pd) to 128.96 u (¹²⁹Pd). Most of these have half-lives that are less than a half an hour except ¹⁰¹Pd (half-life: 8.47 hours), ¹⁰⁹Pd (half-life: 13.7 hours), and ¹¹²Pd (half-life: 21 hours).

The primary decay mode before the most abundant stable isotope, ¹⁰⁶Pd, is electron capture and the primary mode after is beta decay. The primary decay product before ¹⁰⁶Pd is rhodium and the primary product after is silver.

Radiogenic ¹⁰⁷Ag is a decay product of ¹⁰⁷Pd and was first discovered in the Santa Clara meteorite of 1978. The discoverers suggest that the coalescence and differentiation of iron-cored small planets may have occurred 10 million years after a nucleosynthetic event. ¹⁰⁷Pd versus Ag correlations observed in bodies, which have clearly been melted since accretion of the Solar System, must reflect the presence of short-lived nuclides in the early Solar System.