Determination of americium-243 through its daughter product neptunium-239

Abstract

The extraction of Np(IV), Zr, Nb, Cs, Ce(III) and Am(III) from nitric acid solutions containing oxalate and phosphate ions by solutions of 1-phenyl-3-methyl-4-benzoylpyrazolon-5 (PMBP) and tri-n-butyl phosphate (TBP) in benzene has been investigated. A solution 0.1M in respect to PMBP and 0.25M in respect to TBP was found to extract 99% of neptunium from aqueous solutions 1M in respect to H₃PO₄ and 0.5M in respect to HNO₃. Under these conditions, the extraction of the other investigated elements does not exceed 0.1%. Based on this finding, a procedure was developed to determine²⁴³Am through its daughter product²³⁹Np in solutions containing large quantities of curium and its fission products. The sensitivity of the procedure is 1·10⁻⁷ mg of²⁴³Am in the sample. The²⁴³Am content is obtained by calculation from measurements of the γ-activity of the extracted²³⁹Np. The purification ratio of²³⁹Np is∼10⁵ from Zr, Nb and Ru, ∼10⁸ from Ce and Cm and >10¹² from Cs.