Production of 93mMo through natY(7Li, 3n) reaction and subsequent studies on separation and extraction behaviour of no-carrier-added 93mMo from an yttrium target

The present work reports heavy-ion-assisted production of 93mMo from a natural yttrium target using the 89Y(7Li, 3n)93mMo reaction. Three different methodologies based on liquid–liquid extraction (LLX), aqueous biphasic extraction and precipitation, have been developed for separation and extraction of no-carrier-added (nca) 93mMo (T1/2=6.85 h) radionuclide from bulk yttrium target. Complete separation of nca Mo from the target Y has been achieved by employing LLX technique with 0.1 M trioctylamine (TOA) dissolved in cyclohexane and 8 M HCl. Quantitative separation of 93mMo from the yttrium target is also possible by precipitating bulk yttrium with 1 M oxalic acid. However, for this particular case, studies have shown that the aqueous biphasic extraction is not the method of choice for separation of nca Mo. Nevertheless, the extraction pattern is important in the context of simulation experiments for studying the behaviour of 106Sg. Similarity or dissimilarity between the extraction patterns in various analytical systems will be helpful to decisively place Sg in the right position in the periodic table.