Co-precipitated silver-metal oxide aggregates for accelerator mass spectrometry of 10Be and 26Al

Abstract

We have developed a chemical co-precipitation method for producing conductive Ag-BeO and Ag-Al2O3 aggregates for 10Be and 26Al analyses. Co-precipitation offers a rapid alternative to grinding and mixing Be and Al oxides with Ag or Cu powder, and ensures that Al and Be oxide grains produced by baking are uniformly dispersed in the conductive Ag matrix. Co-precipitated aggregates are bulkier than pure oxides and require little or no grinding, hence samples containing significantly less than 250 μg of 9Be can be manipulated and analysed, increasing the efficiency of 10Be measurements. Binding BeO with Ag reduces the chance of hazardous BeO dust escaping during sample preparation. Although ion currents from co-precipitated Ag-BeO cathodes are lower than from mixed Nb-BeO, savings in preparation time may offset longer analysis times. Show more