Harvesting Zr from heavy-ion beam irradiated tungsten at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory.

Tungsten is a commonly used material at many heavy-ion beam facilities, and it often becomes activated due to interactions with a beam. Many of the activation products are useful in basic and applied sciences if they can be recovered efficiently. In order to develop the radiochemistry for harvesting group (IV) elements from irradiated tungsten, a heavy-ion beam containing Zr was embedded into a stack of tungsten foils at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory and a separation methodology was devised to recover the Zr. The foils were dissolved in 30% hydrogen peroxide, and the Zr was chemically purified from the tungsten matrix and from other co-implanted radionuclides (such as Sr and Y) using strong cation-exchange (AG MP-50) chromatographic resin in sulfuric acid media. The procedure provided Zr in approximately 60 mL 0.5 M sulfuric acid with no detectable radio-impurities. The overall recovery yield for Zr was (92.3 ± 1.2)%. This proof-of-concept experiment has facilitated the development of methodologies to harvest from tungsten and tungsten-alloy parts that are regularly irradiated at heavy-ion beam facilities.