Excitation functions for the production of long-lived residue nuclides in the reaction natBi(p;xn,yp)Z

Experimental and theoretical studies were performed to complete the data sets on the production of residue nuclides in natural Bi irradiated with protons. For the long-lived and difficult to measure isotopes (108)mAg, Be-10, Al-26 as well as I-129 and Cl-36, chemical systems had been developed aimed to isolate them from the bismuth matrix. The separation methods are based on distillation, precipitation and ion exchange. From the content of the radionuclides determined by accelerator mass spectrometry and gamma-spectrometry, the production cross sections in the proton energy range from 100 to 2600MeV were calculated. The experimental results were compared with theoretical predictions. Significant deviations between experiment and theory over the whole energy range were observed with increasing discrepancies for the production of the lighter residue nuclides.