ENHANCING THE SPECIFIC ACTIVITY OF RE-186 USING AN INORGANIC SZILARD-CHALMERS PROCESS

Conventional Szilard Chalmers experiments using unstable organometalli c compounds usually fail to scale up with increased irradiation time a nd neutron flux. An alternative, inorganic-based, Szilard-Chalmers sys tem involving rhenium metal films or insoluble, mixed-metal oxides, in a level of several millicuries, for enhancement of the specific activ ity of (n,gamma) Re-186 and Re-188 is being evaluated at MURR. This sy stem has consistently yielded enrichment factors of greater than 3 wit h a neutron flux of 8 x 10(13) n/cm(2)/s for several irradiation hours .