Mainz TRIGA reactor

The HELIOS mass separator vat the Mainz TRIGA reactor is one of the few facilities where a gas-jet transportation system has been coupled successfully to a mass separator. Details of the gas-jet system, the integrated skimmer-ion sources, the separator and its collector facilities have been published elsewhere [Maz 80, Maz 81]. Recently, HELIOS was applied for spectroscopic studies of neutron-rich isotopes of praseodymium [Bru 85] and neodymiurn [ Kar 85], Work is in progress in order to replace the existing ion sources by an inductively oupled jplasma ion source (ICP). In case of a successful coupling of the gas-jet with the ICP source it should be possible to ionize any element in the periodic table because temperatures of 6000 -10000 K are reached in the plasma. 

In experiments at the UNILAC accelerator at GSI, Darmstadt, the tantalum isotopes 168 170Ta were transported by the He(KCl) gas-jet and deposited on a polyethylene frit in ARCA II. The dissolution of the collected tantalum activity from the frit was investigated as a function of the a-HiB concentration. Because of the smaller column size in ARCA II (1.6x8 mm) which might cause an earlier breakthrough of the tetravalent and trivalent metal ions it was desirable to decrease the a-HiB concentration. Even with 34 pL of 0.025 M a-HiB, dissolution of >75% of the tantalum activity was achieved in 2 s. The time required for the complete elution of Ta from the column was about 4 s. Similar experiments performed at the Mainz TRIGA reactor with "mNb confirm this result as shown in Figure 14. 

---