Katharina Domnanich

At the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) a plethora of by-product radionuclides will be created that are of immense societal value for a number of disciplines, viz. nuclear medicine, plant biology, material science, astrophysics and stockpile stewardship science. It is an ambitious endeavor to collect these rare radionuclides at sub-nanomolar levels from the vast amount of cooling water, radiochemically purify them, and finally transfer them into a chemical form that is required for the specific applications. So far, the feasibility of ‘isotope harvesting’ was already probed at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL). The next step will involve a translation towards the conditions at FRIB, where challenges like considerably increased levels of radioactivity, diluted in a greatly larger water volume will be met.