Investigating the separation of astatine-211 and polonium-210 via dry distillation

The separation between astatine-211 and polonium-210 during dry distillation with a commercially available equipment was investigated using two different analytical methods. Astatine targets were allowed to completely decay, and dry distillation was performed on the decayed target material, containing polonium-210. Analysis of distillation eluate using alpha spectrometry and alpha camera analysis showed a polonium co-distillation of < 0.1%, indicating a polonium removal exceeding 99.9%.This shows that co-distillation of polonium-210 on an astatine target during dry distillation only results in a minor contribution to the total polonium-210 burden, which is dominated by ingrowth from astatine−210.