Low-cost production of a beryllium-7 tracer from rainwater and purification: preliminary results

⁷Be with its relatively short half-life (53.22 days) is a possibly suitable radionuclide for radiotracer experiments. Low-level activities of natural ⁷Be can be found in rainwater and might be available as a tracer after radiochemical isolation. Herein, beryllium was first concentrated by evaporation of rainwater and/or iron(III) hydroxide co-precipitation. Afterwards, several separation schemes have been tested including various ion exchange resins in order to remove interfering other elements. Characterization was done by gamma spectrometry and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry, respectively. With further optimizations of our methodology, rainwater may become a suitable low-cost and easily accessible ⁷Be tracer source.