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Separation of 163Er from dysprosium target: a step toward neutrino mass measurement through electron capture of 163Ho

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Abstract

Production of pure 163Ho, a potential source for the direct kinematic measurement of neutrino mass, via the decay of its precursor 163Er has been investigated. The short-lived 163Er (75 min) will be produced in the α-particle induced reaction on natural Dy oxide target and will decay eventually to 163Ho. A fast radiochemical separation technique based on liquid–liquid extraction using di-(2-ethylhexyl)phosphoric acid (HDEHP) dissolved in cyclohexane as organic phase and HCl as aqueous phase has been developed to separate no-carrier added (NCA) Er from the Dy matrix.

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Acknowledgments

We are thankful to the target laboratory, VECC, Kolkata for their help in preparing targets. We also acknowledge cyclotron staff at VECC, Kolkata for their help and co-operation during the irradiation. This work is part of Indian National Science Academy (INSA)-Hungarian Academy of Science (HAS) joint project entitled “Studies on different accelerator based production routes of 163Ho and its separation from target matrix”. The work carried out in this paper is also a part of ECHo collaboration (The Electron Capture 163 Holmium experiment, https://www.kip.uni-heidelberg.de/echo/). Radiochemical part and instrumentation of the work is supported by SINP-DAE 12 five-year plan project “Trace Ultratrace Analysis and Isotope Production (TULIP)”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, 247667, India

    Moumita Maiti

  2. Chemical Sciences Division, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, 1/AF Bidhannagar, Kolkata, 700064, India

    Susanta Lahiri

  3. Institute of Nuclear Research of the H.A.S., Bem ter 18/C, 4026, Debrecen, Hungary

    Zoltán Szűcs

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  1. Moumita Maiti
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  2. Susanta Lahiri
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  3. Zoltán Szűcs
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Correspondence to Susanta Lahiri.

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Maiti, M., Lahiri, S. & Szűcs, Z. Separation of 163Er from dysprosium target: a step toward neutrino mass measurement through electron capture of 163Ho. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 307, 1667–1673 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-015-4496-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-015-4496-4

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