Nuclear decay studies of rare-earth fission-product nuclides using fast radiochemical separation techniques

A facility for the rapid radiochemical separation of individual rare-earth fission product nuclides from mixed fission products has been developed at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL). This facility, called the INEL ESOL (elemental separation on-line) facility, includes an electroplated spontaneously fissioning²⁵²Cf source, a He jet transport system to deliver short half-life fission products from the²⁵²Cf hot cell to the radiochemistry laboratory, and a high pressure liquid chromatograph for the individual separation of rare-earth radioelemental fractions. The fission product collection and separation instrumentation is interfaced to a microprocessor that controls valves, motors and other devices and monitoring instrumentation. The data acquistion instrumentation can be controlled from a signal originating from the microprocessor or initiated manually. The results of some recent decay scheme studies on¹⁵³Pm and¹⁵⁴Pm are reported.