FRIB Determines Extra, Unused Isotopes Can be “Harvested”

What will happen to the chemistry of water flowing around a spinning drum of titanium alloy being hit with a heavy-ion beam? The beam-on-water reactions should create a wealth of radionuclides potentially useful in medicine, astrophysics, materials science, and stockpile stewardship science. At Michigan State University (MSU), Katharina Domnanich, assistant professor of chemistry at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) and in the MSU Department of Chemistry, and Gregory Severin, associate professor of chemistry at FRIB and in the MSU Department of Chemistry, combined experimental results and an updated simulation to better understand what to expect in FRIB’s closed water circulation system. It turns out there could be fewer of these oxidizing and reducing agents than previously thought. Read more>>>