Getting purer berkelium, faster than ever

Researchers need a better way to extract individual heavy metal elements, called actinides, to obtain a purer product. In 2018, researchers discovered that the actinide berkelium, when oxidized, does not form negatively charged ions in solutions of high nitric acid, as other actinides do. This meant an anion exchange column could separate berkelium by absorbing other actinides with negatively charged ions.