Development of a portable, automated system for the separation of radionuclides by column chromatography

The determination of the chemical recovery is one of the most important challenges in the radiochemical analysis. Small changes at the pH-value and temperature changes lead to uncontrollable conditions in process. To improve the reproducibility of the chemical determination a separate separating column system (TSM) was developed at the analytic laboratory at JUeLICH. Using the TSM it is possible to separate nuclides by applying variable eluents and ion exchangers also in samples with a very high salt content like urine. Up to now the methods are developed for the elements U, Am and Pu. The automation provides a bigger number of analysed samples per working day and a remarkable economy of time. Due to the increasing of the sample volume it is possible to improve the detection limit of overall analytical procedure (time needed for separation increases). Experimental parameters like rate of flow and chemical recovery were tested. In this progress it was tried to develop a dense portable system which is easy to use. This new TSM allows a realisation of various separating processes by the easy handling via laptop. (orig.)