How to Purify and Get Lithium-6 From Natural Compounds?

Dear Shyam,

as this is a material used in nuclear weapons it is not easy to buy nor to trade.

So ask your local nuclear autorities they should have small quantities.

The industrial process was with mixing Li-Hg alloys with Li-hydroxide, this is yielding some enrichment. The process has to be iterated to get the wanted purity.

There is a large stockpile (the US did shut down the production in 1963) in some states.

There will be new production necessities if the ITER will operate properly.

Why don't you use natural Li until you have proven your concept, as it has 7% of the wanted isotope, so you can test the principles of your detector very simple.

RHABE

Dear Rhabe

I can not use Lithium-7 as it will not interact with Neutrons to give out charge particles.

Lithium-6 enrichment process I am looking for. Density difference is about 14% so some kind of centrifuge must work. I did my research on Lithium-7 for gamma and made many phosphors. Now I am looking for Lithium-6 for Neutrons.

Dear Shyam,

in natural Lithium there is 15% Li6, so your detectors will work at lower sensitivity.

But for test of concept this would do.

RHABE

The biggest problem is to find gamma free neutron source. Hence, detector to sense neutrons without sensing gamma is the thing required to know about the neutrons else a false information from gamma will be seen as neutrons. What I need is 99.99% Lithium-6 Iodide or Lithium-6 Fluoride. I will then doping it with Eu or Mg, Ti or Cu.

Dear Shyam,

where are these gamma-rays coming from?

Natural Li has no radioactive isotopes.

So I think that super-pure natural Li will do the job.

(Unless you need single neutrons counted , and this can be countered by a bigger surface of the sensitive area.)

How much of the Li6 do you need?

Did you think about magnetic mass separation in an ion beam?

With this you can introduce the dopants easily but the machine will be pretty expensive - near 1M$.

If you think about very thin films of Li6 and the "dopants" as films above?

(Many very thin films are no films but islands or nets or similar in-between.

How many single layers of Li are needed to absorb most neutrons?

What is the necessary distance of travel of the fission products to reach the dopants?

There are Li-Ion-Thrusters for spacecraft propulsion. Put one in a big vacuum, add some really big permanent magnets, search for the place where the Li6 and Li7 beams hit the wall and install a substrate there. Ion beam sources for semiconductor coating are more readily available and may be better. Add a sputter magnetron to overcoat the Li with the dopant. This will take a considerable effort in money and time but likely to succeed.

RHABE

I have not thought about separating Lithium-6 in ion beam. Ion currents are often very small. I may need few kg of Lithium-6 to build a large size detectors.centrifuge looks fine to me at this moment like separating butter from milk.

Lithium is some what toxic material so I will have to take care not to hurt the environment and every gram is counted in the inventory. Lithium compounds are hygroscopic naturally but crystals are not so hygroscopic.

Doping is easy and I have done all that when I developed Li-7F phosphors. I took supra-pure grade from E-Merck and then doped the material with impurities of known types. It was a great thing finally and I had top of the world phosphor for my research. I had to make the apparatus of Platinum as fluoride otherwise reacts to everything by generating HF acid.

Dear Shyam,

do you think about molten or evaporated Li? or a compound?

Do you have a price limit?

(I once received information on a isotopically pure material from the platinum group elements and this was offered at 60K$/g.)

So do you really need this big amount as absorption may be low?

RHABE

Dear Rhabe

99.99% pure Lithium-6 Iodide may cost about $10000 per kg. It is not a very expensive item. Raw material should be available for about $500 per kg. Isolated Lithium-7 Iodide will fetch about $1000 per kg and hence even waste is not a waste material.

I need Lithium-6 Iodide about 10 kg for this experiment and it may need about $100,000 investment. That is what I am planning now.

Lithium-6 metal 99.99% pure is also OK. Lithium-6 Hydroxide 99.99% pure is also OK.

I can convert Li-6 metal or Li-6 hydroxide into Lithium-6 Iodide and then I can inject the doping element.

Hi,

We too are interested to find a commercial source for Li6 at a decent price. If you find one, let us know.

Opto