Purification of Archaeological Lead

Abstract

The study of the complex method of deep purification of archaeological lead, developed at the NSC KIPT, is described. The obtained results on the refining and application of purified ancient lead are presented. Pilot batches of ancient Greek and Roman lead of purity >99.9996...99.998 wt.% were produced for growing perfect crystals of archPbWO4 and archPbMoO4, that are used as scintillation detectors for recording rare events in modern lowbackground experiments. The most interesting experiment is RES-NOVA aimed at detecting neutrinos from astrophysical sources such as supernova (SN) collapse using cryogenic detectors made on the basis of archeological lead (archPbWO4). A method of oxidizing refinement of metals is proposed, which can be used for additional removal of chemical and radioactive impurities U, Th, 40K from lead.