Development of On-line Solvent Extraction System with Microchips for Heavy Element Chemistry

A technique of microchip chemistry was introduced into an on-line solvent extraction system for studies of chemical behaviors of heavy elements, and the performance of the system was investigated with some rare earth elements as their homologues. It was confirmed that the extraction equilibria of the elements between the aqueous (acetic acid-sodium acetate buffer solution) and organic (2-thenoyltrifluoroacetone-toluene solution) phases were attained in the microchip within about one second. Using the system, on-line solvent extraction experiments were performed for the short-lived 150,151Dy as model experiments of heavy actinides at the AVF cyclotron facility of the Research Center for Nuclear Physics (RCNP), Osaka University. All the chemical stages from the RI production to their detections were completed within about three minutes, signifying that this system is applicable to studies of heavy actinides having half-lives of a few minutes.