Progress towards the development of a rapid analytical approach for separation of 226Ra using dibenzo-18-crown-6 ether functionalised silica (SiO2) disks

A novel dibenzo-18-crown-6 ether (DB-18CE-6)- functionalised silica (SiO2) disk was found to be a capable source preparation technique for the rapid analysis of 226Ra by alpha-spectrometry. DB-18CE-6 was chemically immobilised onto the surface of SiO2 disks. It is anticipated that the high levels of selectivity of DB-18CE-6 for radium will allow for an efficient chemical separation of 226Ra from other elements present in sample matrices. 226Ra was adsorbed as a monolayer onto the surface of the silica disks, attaching to the functionalised centres of the DB-18CE-6 structure, forming a high resolution counting source for alpha-spectrometry. The chemical recovery of radium from synthetic samples was 2.3% at pH 2, with higher recoveries expected over the pH range of 4−10.