The paper to which I'll refer in this post is this one: J.N. Zappey, E.E. Moore, O. Bene, J.-C. Griveau, R.J.M. Konings, Low- and high-temperature heat capacity of metallic technetium, The Journal of Chemical Thermodynamics, Volume 189, 2024, 107200.
Over the years, I've collected and read a number of papers by R.J.M. Konings, O. Bene, who published frequently in the journal Calphad, with which, some ten or fifteen years ago, which focuses on the computerized modeling of complex phase diagrams. (My son was once offered, by his master's advisor, the opportunity to go to Sweden to be trained on the Calphad program; somehow it fell through.) The program is about Chemical Thermodynamics. Public contempt for thermodynamics, one of the most important sciences in the world, a science that literally defines the world, accounts for the popularity with a general public of enthusiasm for batteries and, worse, hydrogen.
Dr. Konings has apparently moved to Delft University; for many years he was at the Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Center, which was an institute in Germany for the advancement of nuclear energy. I know nothing of him personally, but I would assume he moved since the rise of ignorance and contempt for the collapse of the climate led Germany to willfully destroy its nuclear infrastructure, fund Putin's abilities to attack other countries, and burn gas and coal instead.
I don't know that. I'm just guessing.
Anyway, about technetium, a remarkable metal with some very interesting properties, only one of which is chemical inertness, and the ability to eliminate corrosion in steels, it is the lightest element in the periodic table for which no stable isotopes exist; all of its isotopes are radioactive, and only one, Tc, is available in bulk (ton) scales, where it can be isolated from used nuclear fuels.
I have recently focused some of my discussions with my son on reactor design on this metal, which has properties very similar to the rare element rhenium, and can be made to exceed supplies of rhenium via production in nuclear reactors.
From the paper's introduction: