Chemical consequences of nuclear recoil following the radiative capture of neutrons by cobalt in metal acetylacetonates: radiation annealing

Abstract

It has already been reported that γ- and X-radiation causes annealing in pure trisacetylacetone Co(III) following radiative neutron capture. These measurements have now been extended to the cobalt complex dispersed in a matrix of the pure aluminium and rhodium acetylacetonates, which are isomorphous with the former. The results with such diluted samples of cobaltic acetylacetonate show a change both in the initial separable activity, as well as in the subsequent annealing compared to the results for the pure cobalt complex. The kinetics of thermal annealing in all these systems show that the γ-irradiated samples have faster annealing rates. The results on samples irradiated with γ-rays prior to radiative neutron capture in the pure cobalt complex indicate that the inorganic yield increases with increasing gamma dose. For these samples also, thermal annealing rates have been found to show a marked increase. A detailed study has shown the close similarity of radiation and thermal annealing. The paper also gives the results of a study with ^58mCo dispersed in trisacetylacetone Co(III) both as an interstitial impurity, as well as in the form of the complex.