On-line isothermal gas chromatographic behavior of group-5 elements as homologues of Db

Sato, Tetsuya   ; Tsukada, Kazuaki  ; Asai, Masato  ; Toyoshima, Atsushi; Kasamatsu, Yoshitaka*; Li, Z.; Sato, Nozomi; Kikuchi, Takahiro; Liang, X. H.*; Kaneya, Yusuke*; Nagame, Yuichiro ; Schdel, M.

To investigate chemical properties of the superheavy element dubnium (Db, Z = 105), we have so far developed an on-line isothermal gas chromatographic apparatus. In this work, the on-line experiments with group-5 elements, Nb and Ta, using short-lived isotopes Nb and Ta as the homologues of Db were carried out. We determined optimum conditions to produce volatile compounds of the elements. Under the obtained conditions, overall efficiencies of the volatile compounds were measured as a function of the isothermal temperature in chlorinating condition with mixture of nitrogen gas and the SOCl vapor containing 1% oxygen. Based on the isothermal gas chromatographic behavior of them, it was found that Ta compounds would be less volatile than Nb ones.