Chart of the Nuclides, 11th edition, ed. by J. Magill, R. Dreher, Zs. Sóti, Karlsruhe 2022.
The Karlsruhe Nuclide Chart is a comprehensive classification scheme for isotopes of all the natural and artificial elements. Isotopes are produced either in chain reactions, nuclear fission, or radioactive decay. The chart contains all experimentally known nuclides, their half-lives, decay types, and other data. The radiochemist Walter Seelmann-Eggebert (1915–1988) and his coworker Gerda Pfennig (1930–2017) at Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Center developed the initial idea to present nuclides in a clear arrangement. The first edition was published in 1958, the same year that the Institute of Radiochemistry, headed by Seelmann-Eggebert, was established. The chart was an independently useful resource, irrespective of the Nuclear Research Center’s objectives. Over the decades, the chart has been continuously updated and expanded to reflect new scientific discoveries and to meet the needs of nuclear physics and nuclear medicine. In 2006, the rights and responsibilities related to it were transferred to the neighboring Joint Research Center (JRC) of the European Commission. The JRC has taken on the responsibility of ensuring that the Karlsruhe Nuclide Chart continue to exist as a globally recognized reference work and keep it up to date. as
After World War II, Germany was only permitted to work in the fields of nuclear technology and radioactivity again from 1955 on. There was great need for training in these rapidly developing research areas of nuclear physics, radiochemistry, and reactor technology. Professor Walter Seelmann-Eggebert was appointed director of the Institute of Radiochemistry, a part of the reactor construction and operating firm Kernreaktor Bau- und Betriebsgesellschaft mbH, founded in Karlsruhe in 1956, and he was called to the Chair for Radiochemistry at Karlsruhe Polytechnic. The institute offered “radiochemical isotope courses,” and in the context of this instruction, the Karlsruhe Nuclide Chart was created in collaboration with Gerda Pfennig, which depicted the essential characteristics of the nuclides known at the time. It displayed, apart from half-lives and decay types, the energies of the emitted particles, and the most frequent gamma rays. The first edition of 1958 was in the form of a wall chart. Many thousand copies were made available to interested institutions also abroad. There was an additional edition on paper in standard DIN-A4 format for use at the desk. This first edition contained 1,517 nuclides of the 102 chemical elements known at that time. High demand led to the publication of a second edition along with additional reprintings in the 1960s in collaboration with Professor Helmut Münzel and Gisela Zundel. The third edition in 1968 appeared as a result of the dissemination of the Nuclide Chart worldwide with commentary in four languages (German, English, French, and Spanish). By 1998, three other revised editions had been published by scientists at Karlsruhe Research Center — Seelmann-Eggebert, Pfennig, Münzel, and the newcomer H. Klewe-Nebenius. Thus, within four decades, more than 150,000 wall charts and over 200,000 brochures with fold-out charts were printed. In 2006, after the responsibility for the chart had been transferred to the Joint Research Center (JRC) of the European Commission, its seventh edition appeared, authored by J. Magill, G. Pfennig, and J. Gay, this time with commentaries in seven languages — Russian and Chinese in addition. A spin-off, Nucleonica GmbH, was founded on the basis of a license agreement in early 2011, which operates the online version of the Karlsruhe Nuclide Chart, now containing 4,122 experimentally confirmed nuclides of 118 chemical elements. The Karlsruhe Nuclide Chart remains to this day the most popular interdisciplinary working tool, because it offers a quick overview of all nuclides and provides the user with their basic data. Its lasting relevance is demonstrated by the variety of its forms, ranging from the original poster and folded desk version, to large-scale rugs, ceramic tiling, and mural versions. This chart is very important in a wide assortment of scientific disciplines, from archeology — for instance, C-14 carbon dating —, to nuclear medicine and radio-pharmacy, to physics — especially astrophysics and cosmology. Zsolt Sóti
At the Institute [of Radiochemistry], “radiochemical isotope courses” were offered, and the Karlsruhe Nuclide Chart was created in the context of this instruction […]. During renovations of the analytics building for radiochemistry (building 341), a nuclide chart in the form of a mosaic was installed in the common room, in remembrance of this important project. I personally was employed in Dr. Mainka’s Radiochemistry Analytics Group from 1982 to 1989. Frank Geyer