Abstract
The studies of the isotope separation using ion exchange chromatography or electromigration have been done by many researchers, but the continuous operation of these separation processes has still some difficulties to be solved.
A new type of apparatus was devised on the basis of simultaneous use of ion exchange and electromigration for a continuous isotope enrichment.
To examine the efficiency of this apparatus, the experiments of lithium isotope separation were carried out. At the stationary state of continuous operation, the separation factors of Li2CO3 system and LiOH system were found to be 1.0069 and 1.0049 respectively.
Apart from the advantage of continuous operation, these values are larger than that of 1.001 obtained with Diaion SK#1-LiCl system, 1.002 with Dowex 50X-8-LiCl system and 1.0038 obtained by the electromigration in LiNO3 aqueous solution, while smaller than 1.008 obtained by the electromigration in ion exchange membrane.
