Application of ICP-QMS for the determination of plutonium in environmental samples for safeguards purposes

Determination of total content and isotopic compositions of plutonium and uranium in environmental samples for safeguards purposes by ICP-QMS

“…Decontamination factors of a magnitude of 10 5 were achieved for elements like Al, Ca, Mg, La and Pb (Table 3). For Fe, Th and U, similar DF to the previously published values (Godoy et al, 2007) were obtained; the relatively low iron decontamination factor confirms the necessity of an additional separation step when handling samples like soil and sediments.…”

“…With this result, it is possible to have an idea of the U and Pu content in the sample and therefore define how much spike should be used in order to get similar 239 Pu and 242 Pu and 238 U and 233 U peak heights in the isotopic dilution determinations. Mass bias was corrected applying an exponential law (Godoy et al, 2007).…”

“…The first stage of this program has focused on determining the total uranium and isotopic concentrations in swipe samples (Guidicini et al, 2005), and the second step has focused on determining plutonium concentrations, in particular, 240 Pu/ 239 Pu, 241 Pu/ 239 Pu, and 242 Pu/ 239 Pu atomic ratios and total plutonium content (Godoy et al, 2007). The second step was achieved using Pu/U mixtures containing different Pu and U contents and Pu/U ratios.…”

“…In a previous publication (Godoy et al, 2007), it was demonstrated that by applying quadrupole ICP-MS with an ultra-sonic membrane dessolvator nebulizer, it was feasible to achieve the IAEA safeguard network laboratories' accreditation goals for plutonium determination. However, in order to effectively achieve an accreditation, the same should be demonstrated with respect to total uranium content and isotopic composition determination.…”

Determining 241Pu in environmental samples: case studies in alpine soils

“…This permits the measurement of the low-energy β particles of 241 Pu in the presence of the other Pu α-emitters. Recently, atom counting of 241 Pu by ICP-MS has also been possible in environmental samples [16][17][18][19][20]. However, a major drawback of ICP-MS is the high detection limit of 2-4 Bq/kg [17,20] 241 Pu, a high degree of radiochemical purification is required in order to eliminate interferences from other environmental radionuclides.…”