Renewable separation-column approach

Sr-Resin renewable separation column approach scintillation ... 

In subsequent work, it was shown that a renewable separation-column approach could be used to capture and purify "Tc on a TEVA-Resin column set up between a pair of 2-position valves, as shown in Figure 9.6.83 After loading the sample and washing away interferences, the separation material was released from the column and delivered downstream to a collection vial. Scintillation cocktail was added to the vial off-line and the "Tc was determined radiometrically. In this approach, there is no need to elute the "Tc with strong acid, and a fresh suspension of separation material is delivered to the column body for each sample. 

FIGURE 9.6 Renewable separation-column approach for automatically packing a column on-line, localizing the column packing between a pair of 2-position valves. 

Using the renewable separation-column approach, TRU-Resin can be used to conduct Am-Pu separations without the need to elute the remaining actinides off the resin.83 Instead, the resin could simply be replaced prior to the next sample. In addition, it was shown that TRU-Resin could be automatically loaded into a separation column as part of an open-architecture radiochemical separation workstation, where the instrument would load the desired separation material, and then select reagents appropriate to the separation desired, all under computer control according to the operator s needs for the sample at hand.83... 

Sr-Resin separations can also be set up in a renewable separation-column approach83 as described above for "Tc determinations, and illustrated in Figure 9.6. In this case, the sample was separated and eluted from the column. The advantage of the renewable column approach was that fresh column material could be provided for each separation. The carryover on Sr-Resin columns, described above, is largely due to the resin material. It was shown that automatically replacing the resin material largely eliminated carryover from one sample to the next. 

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