Molecular plating of uranium on thin aluminum backings

Molecular plating is widely used for the deposition of lanthanide and actinide compounds on thin metallic backing foils [1]. At GSI and UMZ, this method has been previously applied on Ti or Be foils. Within the requirements of the TASCA-Project (TransActinide Separator and Chemistry Apparatus) very thin foils of Al (2-10μ m) as backing material have been proposed [2]. The general usability of very thin Al was investigated by a test series with Gd and U. For these tests, plating conditions were adopted unchanged from previous practices [3]. Although Al foils of less than 10μ m in thickness are difficult to manage, they show no significant disadvantages compared to Ti or Be with molecular plating. 2-Propanol (isopropanol) as organic solvent has previously been used for the preparation of actinide targets on Ti and Be backings. But on Al, the stability of the U layer is not acceptable. The surface of most of the targets looked scaly or cracked associated with irreproducible plating yields. In order to solve these problems, an alternative solvent, 2-Methyl-1-Propanol (isobutanol) was tested. Table 1 compares the plating condition of the previously used isopropanol and the newly tested conditions applying isobutanol.