A route for polonium 210 production from alpha-particle irradiated bismuth-209 target

Abstract

A method is proposed for production of polonium-210 via the 209Bi(α, 3n)210At nuclear reaction. Bombardment of a bismuth-209 target was performed with a 37 MeV alpha-particle beam that leads to the production of astatine-210 (T1/2 = 8.1 h), which decays to polonium-210. It is purified from the bismuth target matrix by employing liquid-liquid extraction using tributyl phosphate (TBP) in para-xylene from 7 M hydrochloric acid. Back extraction of polonium-210 was performed by 9 M nitric acid. This method allows to purify a tracer amount of Po-210 (2.6 * 10-13 mol) from macroscopic amount of Bi (2.8 * 10-2 mol)