What Is Exactly the Scope of Nuclear Chemistry and Its Educational Position between Other Chemistry Branches

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.