Harvesting ⁴⁸V at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory

Highlights: • A selective separation method was developed to separate the multivalent element vanadium from a complex mixture of elements (Z ∼ 1–28). • Vanadium-48 was produced via heavy-ion fragmentation of a 160 MeV/nucleon ⁵⁸Ni beam at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. • The primary- and secondary-beam ions, including ⁴⁸V, were successfully stopped in an aqueous target cell and characterized via γ-ray spectroscopy. • By way of cation-exchange chromatography, the highest recovery of ⁴⁸V was 47.0 ± 2.5% and resulted in a radionuclidic purity of 95.8 ± 2.5%. • A low recovery yield was measured due to the likely presence of anionic vanadium in the V(V) vanadate form, which differed from the cyclotron produced cationic ⁴⁸V used to validate the separation method. - Abstract: As part of an effort to develop aqueous isotope harvesting techniques at radioactive beam facilities, ⁴⁸V and a cocktail of primary- and secondary-beam ions created by the fragmentation reaction of a 160 MeV/nucleon ⁵⁸Ni beam were stopped in an aqueous target cell. After collection, ⁴⁸V was separated from the mixture of beam ions using cation-exchange chromatography. The extraction efficiency from the aqueous solution was (47.0 ± 2.5)%, and the isolated ⁴⁸V had a radiochemical purity of 95.8%. This proof-of-concept work shows that aqueous isotope harvesting could provide significant quantities of rare isotopes which are currently unavailable at conventional facilities.