The upcoming Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University will be able to regularly produce many potentially useful exotic radionuclides as byproducts of spallation and fragmentation reactions of unused primary beams in an aqueous beam dump. One such radionuclide is 48V, which is important for enhancing the neutron capture cross section data of V isotopes for the Stockpile Stewardship Program. For accurate data to be obtained in neutron capture studies with 48V, the 48V target must be isotopically pure with minimal 49V impurity (48V/49V = 104). Prior studies completed at FRIB’s precursor, the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL), have shown that V can be chemically separated from various types of aqueous solutions, but none have shown 48V can be isolated with high isotopic purity.
One way of obtaining 48V in high isotopic purity is by setting up a 48Cr/48V generator by harvesting 48Cr. To meet this goal, efforts will be made to develop the protocols for constructing a 48Cr/48V generator starting with stable Cr and V separations and ending with proof-of-concept experiments at FRIB. Experiments completed so far have shown solutions can be made with stable Cr and V in the same oxidation states as those observed with Cr and V produced in prior experiments at NSCL. Results from elution studies with AG1-X8 anion exchange columns loaded with stable Cr and V from these solutions suggest that 93.3(20) % Cr and 89.9(24) % V can be eluted with 2 M HNO3 and 1 M HCl respectively. Additional results from elution studies performed with AG1-X8 columns loaded with Cr and V from mixed Cr and V solutions suggest that it would be difficult to achieve good separation of Cr and V given the loading conditions. So, recent experiments have focused on secondary separation methods with the aim of producing a 48Cr/48V generator.

Preparation for harvesting <sup>48</sup>V from an aqueous beam dump for neutron capture cross section studies

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

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Preparation for harvesting 48V from an aqueous beam dump for neutron capture cross section studies

Preparation for harvesting ⁴⁸V from an aqueous beam dump for neutron capture cross section studies