Study of the interaction of iodine with high-energetic protons from 145 to 2600 MeV: Measurements of cross sections

Transuranic elements and fission product nuclides such as 129I determine the long-term toxicity of radioactive waste. For this reason, their chemical separation with subsequent transmutation into stable or short-lived nuclides is being discussed and investigated. Long-lived 129I could be transmuted into stable gaseous 130Xe by neutron capture. As an alternative to the neutron-induced transmutation of 129I, the interaction of NaI with high-energy protons has been experimentally investigated in this study. In 1994 - 95 a series of irradiations with proton energies between 145 and 2600 MeV were carried out at the synchrotron of the Laboratoire National Saturne in Saclay (France) using the stacked-foil technique. The effective cross sections for more than 50 proton-induced reactions were determined by γ-spectrometry. The new excitation functions determined experimentally were compared with the incomplete data sets from earlier studies and discussed in the context of existing semiempirical formula for the calculation of spallation cross-sections. (orig.)