Physical preseparation for chemistry experiments

The availability of physically preseparated isotopes for chemistry experiment opens up completely new possibilities, especially for chemical investigations of transactinide elements. Many restrictions present in conventional methods that were used very successfully in the past can be overcome by using preseparated isotopes. An overview of experiments that were performed with preseparated isotopes is given. Studies of β-diketonates of group 4 elements are described in some more detail and used as an example to demonstrate the power of the method. Production of preseparated long-lived transactinide isotopes is outlined and, lastly, the new preseparator TASCA which is currently being installed at GSI, Darmstadt, is briefly described.