Separation of carrier-free tellurium from bulk amounts of tin

Abstract Tellurium radionuclides produced in the (α, xn) reaction on a Sn target have been separated in carrier-free form by coprecipitation with Pd followed by anion exchange separation. Tellurium was oxidised to Te(VI) by NaBiO 3 before loading onto Dowex 2 × 8 anion exchange resin. The time required to complete the chemical separation was about 1 h. The overall chemical yield was estimated to be 78±3%