A basic study on the production of enriched isotope 48Ca by using crown-ether resin

Abstract

The use of enriched 48Ca is expected to improve the sensitivity of 48Ca double beta decay measurements. We have studied the enrichment of 48Ca with chemical exchange isotope separation using benzo-18-crown-6-ether resin. Chromatographic migrations of the calcium adsorption band were carried out at different migration lengths, 1 m, 20 m, and 200 m, using glass columns. Separation coefficients were observed as approximately 3 × 10-3. Efforts have been made towards the production of benzo-18-crown-6-ether monomer at reasonable cost for the production of crown-ether resin for the separation of 48Ca.