A system has been designed, constructed, tested and used for producing large quantities of monodisperse (rog < 1.2) submicrometer particles of 238PuO2 with density about 7.8 g/cm3 which are being used in inhalation experiments with dogs and rodents. The system consists of a series of five stainless steel glove boxes housing the aerosol generation system for producing polydisperse 238PuO2, an aerosol chamber and four Lovelace Aerosol Particle Separator (LAPS) units to separate the polydisperse PuO2 into monodisperse fractions and collect them. The collected monodisperse particles of PuO2 are subsequently suspended in water containing a suitable particle stabilizing agent and nebulized to provide monodisperse respirable aerosols of 238PuO2 particles. The use of 51Cr and 169Yb as gamma-emitting labels for 238PuO2 has been studied. Much 51Cr left the 238PuO2 particles under the 1150°C heat treatment so that neither uniform nor adequate labeling was achieved. The nuclide 169Yb, however, was both a uniform and relatively stable label for 238PuO2 aerosols although ytterbium dissolution was somewhat higher than for the plutonium.
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Raabe et al. (1975) studied this question.