Speaker
Description
The isolation of plutonium from complex actinide matrices represents a critical stage in the preparation of high-purity targets for nuclear data measurements. This process is inherently challenging due to the closely related chemical behaviours of actinide elements and the coexistence of multiple oxidation states. In this study, an anion-exchange chromatography method is used to achieve the requisite purity. By employing a controlled redox pre-treatment cycle, plutonium is stabilised in the +IV oxidation state to maximise retention on the resin, while other actinides, namely americium, neptunium, and uranium, are selectively eluted. The purified plutonium is subsequently recovered from the column using an ascorbic acid solution as eluent. Alpha-particle and gamma-ray spectroscopic analyses confirmed a plutonium recovery yield exceeding 98 %, with residual americium contamination suppressed to below 1.6 %. Additionally, thermal ionisation mass spectrometry (TIMS) verified the effective removal of neptunium and uranium, thereby demonstrating the method’s efficacy for producing high-purity plutonium targets suitable for nuclear physics experiments.