Separation of barium-140 from irradiated uranium using manganese dioxide

A method has been developed for the rapid separation of barium-140 from irradiated uranium using inorganic exchanger manganese dioxide. The details of this method are presented in this paper. The separation can be carried out in about two days' time whereas the method using α-hydroxy isobutryric acid as the complexing agent takes about 4-5 weeks. In this method, uranium is dissolved in nitric acid and the solution at an acidity of 0.2M is passed over a column of MnO2. The barium is subsequently eluted with 4M HNO3 acid. No other short lived fission produced element gets eluted under these conditions. (author)