MERCURY PURIFICATION IN THE MEGAWATT LIQUID METAL SPALLATION TARGET OF EURISOL-DS

摘要

High power spallation targets are going to be usedrnextensively in future research and technical facilities suchrnas spallation neutron sources, neutrino factories,rnradioactive beam facilities or accelerator driven systemsrnfor the transmutation of long-lived nuclear waste. WithinrnEURISOL-DS, a 4 MW liquid metal spallation target isrndesigned to provide neutrons for a fission target, wherernneutron rich radionuclides will be produced. For thernspallation target, mercury is planned to be used as targetrnmaterial. A large amount of radionuclides ranging fromrnatomic number Z=1 to 81 will be produced in the liquidrnmetal during long term irradiation. It is planned tornremove those radionuclides by chemical orrnphysicochemical methods to reduce its radioactivity. Forrnthe development of a purification procedure, knowledgernabout the chemical state of the different elements presentrnin the mixture is required. We present a general conceptrnof applicable separation techniques in a target system andrnshow some results of experiments on the chemicalrnbehavior of radionuclides produced by proton irradiationrnof mercury as well as the first successful separationrnexperiments.