Physical preseparation: A powerful new method for transactinide chemists

In recent years, the concept of physical preseparation of single atoms was introduced into the field of transactinide chemistry. In this approach, the transactinide element of interest is isolated in a physical recoil separator and then extracted from this machine. The beam as well as the unwanted reaction products are strongly suppressed, allowing for the investigation of new chemical systems that were not accessible before. The most important aspects of the technique are discussed and the advantages for chemistry experiments with transactinides are presented, using some of the chemical studies that were performed with preseparated isotopes as examples.