MULTITRACER A NEW TRACER TECHNIQUE - ITS PRINCIPLE, FEATURES, AND APPLICATION

We established ''Multitracer'', a new versatile radiotracer technique, for simultaneous tracing of a number of elements in various chemical, environmental, and biological systems. Metal foil targets (typically Au, Ag, Ge, Cu and Fe) are irradiated with C, N, or O ions accelerated up to 135 MeV/nucleon by RIKEN Ring Cyclotron. Radiochemical procedur es have been developed to remove the target material leaving the nucli des as Multitracer solutions containing various radionuclides of Be, N a, Mg, K, Ca, Sc, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Ga, As, Se, Br, Rb, S r, Y, Zr, Nb, Mo, Tc, Ru, Rh, Pd, Ag, Cd, In, Sn, Te, I, Ba, Ce, Pm, E u, Gd, Tb, Tm, Yb, Lu, Hf, W, Re, Os, Ir, Pt, and Hg. Multitracers ena ble efficient tracing of a number of elements, and comparison of their behavior under strictly identical experimental conditions. Such featu res will be demonstrated by means of an example of application to a mo del experiment for the study of removal mechanism of various elements from the ocean.