Radiochemical Separation of Thallium by Amalgam Exchange

Abstract

Summary The radiochemical separation of thallium by an amalgam exchange technique has been critically evaluated for the aqueous 0.5 M sodium nitrate system. With an optimized procedure, thallium yields of more than 95% were obtained while yields of contaminants, in most cases, were less than 0.1%. The yield is relatively insensitive to interferences from mineral acids, alkalies and salts, except for halogen acids, sulphites and oxidizing agents. At room temperature the procedure requires about 6 minutes while at 50 °C it can be carried out in only 4 minutes. The application of this method to the separation of radio-thallium in the presence of fission products requires about 8 minutes. This procedure appears to have useful potential for the separation of short-lived isotopes of thallium and can readily be modified for the determination of small amounts of thallium in various samples when used in conjunction with neutron activation analysis.