Preparation of low-radioactive high-purity enriched 100MoO3 powder for AMoRE-II experiment

Hyojin Yeon, Jun Seok Choe, Olga Gileva, Kevin Insik Hahn, Woon Gu Kang, Go Woon Kim, Hong Joo Kim, Yena Kim, Yeongduk Kim, Eun Kyung Lee, Moo Hyun Lee, Douglas S. Leonard, Vitaly Milyutin, Hyang Kyu Park, Su Yeon Park, Keon Ah Shin

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Abstract

This paper describes preparing radiopure molybdenum trioxide powder enriched with Mo-100 isotope for the AMoRE-II experiment. AMoRE-II, the second phase of the AMoRE experiments, will search for the neutrinoless double-beta decay (0νDBD) of the 100Mo isotope using over 100 kg of 100Mo embedded in 200 kg of ultra-pure Li2100MoO4 bolometric crystals. Efficient purification technology was developed and adapted to purify 100MoO3 powder with a 5 kg per month production capacity. Based on the ICP-MS analysis of purified powder, the 232Th and 238U were reduced to <9.4 μBq/kg and <50 μBq/kg, respectively. The concentrations of potassium, transition metals, and heavy metals were lower than 1 ppm. HPGe counting confirmed the reduction of progenies from the 232Th and 238U decay chains, reporting upper limits of <27 μBq/kg for 228Ac and <16 μBq/kg for 228Th. The 226Ra activity was acceptable at 110 ± 30 μBq/kg. In the last 3 years, 100 kg of pure 100MoO3 powder was produced. The production yield for the final purified product was above 90%, while irrecoverable losses were under 1.5%, and all by-products could be recycled further.

Original languageEnglish
Article number1142136
JournalFrontiers in Physics
Volume11
DOIs
StatePublished - 2023

Keywords

  • MoO
  • AMoRE-II
  • HPGe array
  • ICP-MS
  • purification
  • ultra-low radioactivity

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