Behavior of the 128I retention rate in the Szilard-Chalmers process: a radiochemistry experiment at INFN-LNS

Martedì 17 dicembre 2024, con inizio alle ore 15:00, presso l'Aula T del DFA, il Dott. Luigi Redigolo terrà un seminario dal titolo Behavior of the 128I retention rate in the Szilard-Chalmers process: a radiochemistry experiment at INFN-LNS.

Il seminario appartiene al ciclo Young Physicists to Young Physicists (YP2), organizzato dai Rappresentati del Dottorato in Fisica.

Abstract. A new experiment performed at INFN-LNS reports results on the retention effects of Iodine-128 in Ethyl Iodide  solutions, irradiated with thermal neutrons, as a function of the molar concentration of ethanol. It was previously known that the addition of ethanol to ethyl iodide samples, prior to irradiation, generated two different effects: upon addition of small quantities (1 mol%), it lowers the extraction yield of free radioactive 128I, while for higher additions (50 mol%) it allows to get a higher yield for the 128I extraction. We explored, systematically, the effects given by the addition of different quantities of ethanol, in the molar concentration range between 0 and 50%, and found an optimum value for the 128I extraction yield after a sizable post-irradiation time. The competition between the buffer effect given by the increasing dilution, and the decrease in the concentration of carrier iodine atoms, is qualitatively proposed to explain this curious effect.