Recent achievements in increasing the electromagnetic separation efficiency of actinides

For more than 35 years the RFNC-VNIIEF laboratory has been engaged in electromagnetic separation of actinides. S-2 mass-separator equipped with a radiation protection system (a radiation shielding) enables to carry out separation of high-activity actinide materials such as uranium, plutonium, americium and curium. The basic characteristics of the S-2 mass-separator are presented. Recently this unique laboratory has been supplying products to foreign laboratories. During the last three years the work concentrated on the improvement of the technology of electromagnetic separation with the aim to achieve stable characteristics of the S-2 mass-separator operation. Trichlorides of separated elements have been serving as a working substance. New technologies of production of pure trichlorides have been developed, including a technology of scattered material regeneration (when up to 85-90% of the material was possible to use in repeated cycles of separation), 100-% extraction efficiency and deep purification of accumulated isotopes from the collector boxes. It can be seen that for the majority of isotopes unique levels of enrichment have been achieved. A set of Pu-239, Pu-241, Cm-243, Cm-245 isotopes is obtained using the process of double separation. Of course, the quality of products depends on the composition of separated mixtures. Uranium, plutonium, americium and curium were produced after a long irradiation of original materials in a nuclear reactor with high density of neutron flux. For nuclear physics and other applications, thin standard layers of the enriched actinide isotopes are made by means of electrochemical and vacuum deposition. There are also available certified highly enriched isotope solutions which can be used as tracers or spikes in different areas of investigations. For the study of physical and chemical characteristics of isotopes in experiments with synthesis of heavy transactinium elements (carried out in the Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions of the Joint Institute of Nuclear Research in Dubna) we produced isotopic targets used in these experiments. At present we are working on the preparation of plutonium-244 enriched up to 99.5%, even up to 99.99%. We supply isotopes through JSC Tekhsnabexport - an organization associated with MinAtom that possesses a license for export of radionuclides. Usually the schedule for the specimens delivery from stock constitutes 3-6 months. Our transport containers have international certificates. We have no doubts that our scientific and technological developments may be of interest to institutes working on heavy transactinide isotopes synthesis, as well as in applications of heavy isotopes as traces for studying environmental processes. Recently we have also been working on increasing separation efficiencies for very expensive original isotopic materials using electromagnetic separation (from 5 to 15-20%). We are developing a new ion source as well as an electric power source with the aim to increase the operational temperature of the source, so the separated materials could be used in the form of metals and oxides. The high efficiency of the source will make it possible to use smaller amounts of original material for the production of the required mass of the material, and it will also improve radiation conditions for carrying out the works with separating highly active isotopic mixtures