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A chromatography chemistry for purifying Pa from U-Nb metal alloys

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Abstract

We present a chromatography chemistry for purifying protactinium from uranium metal alloys containing weight-percent concentrations of niobium. Niobium is precipitated in 9 M HCl without the co-precipitation of Pa as demonstrated by gamma-ray spectrometry. Protactinium is further purified using Bio-Rad™ anion resin AG® 1-X8 and 9 M HCl + 0.0128 M HF. A Pa/Nb separation factor of 85,000 and a 90% Pa recovery is demonstrated, which is amenable to 231Pa concentration determination by isotope dilution and 231Pa/235U model age calculation for nuclear forensics.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been cleared for unlimited release by LANL DFS-CL (LA-UR-22-30249). The work was supported by funds from the National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) Office NA-83: Office of Nuclear Forensics. We want to thank and acknowledge the ongoing technical support provided by the LANL C-NR Countroom. We also wish to thank Amy Gaffney at Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL) and Matthew Higginson, Chris Gilligan, and James Dunne at Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) for technical discussion and their on-going support in working with U-Nb alloys.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Los Alamos National Lab, P.O. Box 1663, Los Alamos, NM, 87545, USA

    John R. Engel, Joanna S. Denton, Stephen P. Lamont, Jacob E. Buettner, Robert E. Steiner & Theresa M. Kayzar-Boggs

  2. Lawrence Livermore National Lab, P.O. Box 808, Livermore, CA, 94551, USA

    Christine Y. Chen

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  1. John R. Engel
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  2. Joanna S. Denton
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  7. Theresa M. Kayzar-Boggs
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Engel, J.R., Denton, J.S., Lamont, S.P. et al. A chromatography chemistry for purifying Pa from U-Nb metal alloys. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 332, 369–376 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-022-08747-7

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