Radiochemical separations of fission products from large excesses of aluminium

A radiochemical procedure is presented for the isolation of several fission products from a solution containing a large excess of aluminium. The development of this separation scheme was required in the course of ''catcher foil'' experiments. The catcher foils were dissolved for radiochemical analysis. The important steps in the procedure include sulfide precipitations of the fission products at varying selective acid strenghts. After the gross separation of the individual fission products each nuclide was further purified according to standard radiochemical procedures. The time of separation of any one nuclide by this chemistry was about two hours, which allows the detection of many short-lived radionuclides produced in fission. The sample to be irradiated was 233U. The fission product sources were produced by irradiating the stacked foil of 233U on nickel and the aluminium catcher foils with 14.8 MeV neutrons produced by the University of Arkansas 400 kV Cockcroft-Walton linear accelerator. The 14.8 MeV neutrons were produced through the T/d,n/4He reaction with typical neutron fluxes of 5x109 n.cm-2s-1. The irradiations were usually for a duration of 4 hrs. Elements determined: Ag, Mo, Te, Pd, Sn, Sb, Cd, Ba. (F.Gy.)