ELECTRODEPOSITION OF MILLIGRAM AMOUNTS OF URANIUM ON ELECTROPOLISHED STAINLESS-STEEL DISKS

Investigations have been carried out for the electrodeposition of milligram amounts of uranium on electropolished stainless steel disks with an objective of preparing good quality sources for alpha-spectrometric studies on uranium. The parameters studied include the variation of electrodeposition yield as a function of voltage, time, distance between the cathode and anode, and the volume of 0.2M ammonium oxalate solution. The conditions selected for preparing good quality sources with nearly 100% yield were: electrodeposition voltage 25 V, time of deposition 15 min, volume of 0.2M ammonium oxalate solution in the cell 4 ml and a distance of 2 cm between the cathode and anode. The sources prepared using this method have been used successfully for the alpha-spectrometric determination of U-234/U-238 ratios in uranium samples.