Plasma separation enrichment process

The Energy Research and Development Agency (ERDA), the forerunner to the DOE, through the late 1970s to 1981 supported the study of three new experimental processes for uranium enrichment. Two were based upon laser separation, and one on plasma separation. Jersey Nuclear-Avco Isotopes Incorporated (subsidiary of Exxon) and the LLNL worked on atomic uranium vapor. LLNL referred to it as AVUS. The LANL and a group at Exxon Research Laboratories (not connected with Jersey-Avco) worked on molecular UFg. TRW Incorporated pursued research work on a plasma separation process. Union Carbide Nuclear Division (UCC-ND) supported each in their efforts. In 1981, the AVLIS process at LLNL was selected as the process to be developed further and the other processes were subsequently phased out. 

A similar concept was used for other environmental applications, for example, phenoxy acids, sulfonureas, phenolic compounds, and other environmentally important persistent pollutants [68, 76, 141, 143, 155-166]. Also, in the same manner, several drugs were enriched and determined in body fluids such as urine [144-146, 167-172] or blood [147, 156, 157, 173, 174]. A very advanced apphcation of SLM for analytical purposes, where transport process was based on simple diffusion with pH adjustment of aqueous phase, is the extraction of the basic drug, bambuterol, for pretreatment of plasma samples before analysis with capfflary zone electrophoresis (CZE) [147]. Bambuterol was used as a model substance in a separation system, where either 6-undecanone or a mixture of di- -hexyl ether (DHE) and tri- -octylphosphine oxide (TOPO) was used as membrane phase. It was possible not only to achieve a very low hmit of detection ( 50 nmol/1) but also to ensure the removal of salts from the sample. It helped to obtain the low ionic strength of the blood plasma samples and permitted subsequent sample stacking in the caphlary electrophoresis step. 

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