Development and Implementation of Nuclear Chemistry Experiments at the Undergraduate Level

Abstract

There currently exists a significant deficiency in the nuclear chemistry workforce within the United States, despite its importance in areas of medicine, national security, and energy. Poor coverage of this topic across many chemistry departments at the undergraduate level likely contributes to this shortage. Increasing interest and hands-on experience through the availability of laboratory experiments may help alleviate this burden. Herein, we describe a set of nuclear chemistry experiments designed for undergraduate students that can be readily implemented in chemistry departments without specialized programs in this area. These experiments emphasize several concepts related to safe work practices with radioactive materials, such as the effects of distance and shielding. Additionally, the use of a commercially available radionuclide generator was implemented to have students identify an "unknown" radionuclide based on its measured half-life and gamma (γ) spectrum. This laboratory experiment was carried out by two chemistry courses at Cornell University. Student feedback obtained from these sections showed that this hands-on experiment enhanced student understanding of several key concepts of nuclear chemistry and also successfully stimulated interest in this topic. Therefore, this study demonstrates that simple nuclear chemistry laboratory experiments can be implemented in a diverse range of chemistry departments and are effective at fostering student understanding and interest in this topic.

Radiochemical Separation Techniques in Classroom Settings

“…For circumstances where experiment time and space layout are constrained, educators may consider using miniaturized isotope generators , and bypassing the column preparation and metal solution loading steps. A 137 Cs/ 137m Ba isotope generator was used in our practice and elsewhere to demonstrate CEC and radioactive decay (SI §3.2) since the students had already learned about preseparation operations in the previous AEC experiment. This device is typically used to determine the half-life and decay constant, which are beyond the scope of this article.…”