Development of a high-purity zirconium purifier for nEXO

The nEXO experiment is a planned ton-scale liquid xenon time projection chamber (TPC) designed to search for neutrinoless double beta decay (0vBB) with a half-life sensitivity beyond 10²⁸ years. To achieve optimal energy resolution, electronegative impurities that limit the electron lifetime must be removed from the xenon. Continuous purification of the xenon is one solution. While typical zirconium-alloy getter purifiers are well-suited to this purpose, they have been found to emanate radon, contributing to backgrounds which, in turn, reduce the sensitivity of the detector. This has motivated the development of a dedicated low-background purifier using high-purity zirconium. In this talk, the design considerations of such a purifier will be discussed and some preliminary results from a prototype will be presented.