Development of a semi-automated system for the extraction of the organic phase in the production of Na99mTcO4

The sodium pertechnetate, produced in the Plant of Radioisotopes Production is obtained by a solvent extraction method using methylethylketone. The organic phase that contains the pertechnetate ion is separated from the aqueous phase with a ceiling. This manipulation is a critical stage to obtain a better performance of the organic phase extraction. The current system is manual and has restrictions for the position of the jib, increasing the probability of dragging 99Mo from the aqueous phase to the chromatographic column. In order to improve the performance of this process, we have designed and implemented a semi-automated system for the extraction of the organic phase. In this new system we obtained a higher level of the organic phase which eliminates the restriction of jib position and, as a consequence, the probability of dragging 99Mo to the chromatographic column is decreased considerably. In this work we describe the experimental details of the implementation of this system and the results of the preliminary test. (orig.)