Validating Vacuum Chromatography with Subsecond Radioisotopes of Hg for Superheavy Element Chemistry

Isothermal vacuum adsorption chromatography (IVAC) in the molecular-flow regime offers the speed and chemical selectivity needed to study superheavy elements beyond flerovium (Fl, Z = 114). In this study, the GLACIER buffer gas cell and RF quadrupole combination was coupled with IVAC behind the gas-filled separator AGGIE for benchmark experiments with short-lived mercury radioisotopes 179Hg (t1/2 = 1.05(3) s) and 178Hg (t1/2 = 0.2665(24) s). GLACIER provided stable transport conditions over multiple days thereby enabling a clean chromatographic separation of Hg from less-volatile nuclear reaction byproducts on fused silica. These experiments validated the employed microscopic-kinetic transport model at zero surface coverage implemented in the form of a Monte Carlo simulation. The presented findings render this approach applicable to superheavy elements such as moscovium (Mc, Z = 115).