Development of analytical techniques for ultra trace amounts of nuclear materials in environmental samples using ICP-MS for safeguards

Magara, Masaaki; Hanzawa, Yukiko; Esaka, Fumitaka; Miyamoto, Yutaka; Yasuda, Kenichiro; Watanabe, Kazuo; Usuda, Shigekazu; Nishimura, Hiroshi; Adachi, T.

doi:10.1016/s0969-8043(00)00117-2

Cited by 31 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 2 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…A few articles have recently been published about using HR ICP-MS to determine ultra trace amounts of Pu [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39]42] and Am [40] in the environment. Thermal ionisation mass spectroscopy (TIMS) was proposed to measure Pu in human urine [41] and in the environmental samples [39,[42][43][44][45][46][47]. Resonance ionization mass spectroscopy (RIMS) [48][49][50] and quadrupole mass spectroscopy [51,52] were also proposed to measure Pu in the environment samples.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The measurement of the 24~ isotope ratio is of importance from the viewpoint of environmental monitoring to determine the origin of the contamination [1,2,3,4,13,17,24,31,33,38,49,55,67]. For reactor-grade plutonium this ratio lies in the range from 0.06 to 0.65 depending on the irradiation conditions of the fuel [33,39]. For spent nuclear fuel the ratio increases with the higher fuel burnup, due to build-up of ") Estimated from ratios 9~ in global deposition [33].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Pu and Am determination in the environment—method development

et al. 2003

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A high resolution inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometric (HR-ICP-MS) method for the determination of plutonium isotopes, Am and the 24~ isotope ratio utilising modification of Pu-02-RC Plutonium in Soil Samples, Pu-03-RC Plutonium in Soil Residue -Total Dissolution Method, Pu-11-RC Plutonium Purification -Ion Exchange Technique, Pu-12-RC Plutonium and/or Americium in Soil or Sediments, HASL-300 was developed. Total plutonium concentrations (239+24~ measured in environmental samples by this HR-ICP-MS method were in good agreement with recommended data obtained from a-spectrometry. It was achieved the decreasing of the time to analyze the samples over than 33%.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pu and Am determination in the environment—method development

et al. 2003

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…3 The main advantages of ICP-MS are its ease, the promptness with which samples can be introduced, and its high performance according to the metrics of sensitivity, accuracy, precision, and repeatability. 4 Despite these advantages, the technique has low abundance sensitivity, a high mass bias, and vulnerability to matrix effects and isobaric interferences.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…4 Despite these advantages, the technique has low abundance sensitivity, a high mass bias, and vulnerability to matrix effects and isobaric interferences. [3][4] SIMS is used to measure the isotope ratios of U and/or Pu within individual particles from environmental samples. [5][6] SIMS is especially good for high spatial selectivity, which enables us to focus the analysis on a speicific location with micro-scopic spatial resolution.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Feasibility of Using Graphite Powder to Enhance Uranium Ion Intensity in Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometry (TIMS)

Park¹

2016

Mass Spectrometry Letters

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

: This study explored the feasibility of using a carburization technique to enhance the ion intensity of isotopic analysis of ultra-trace levels of uranium using thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS). Prior to fixing uranium samples on TIMS filaments, graphite powder suspended in nitric acid was deposited on rhenium filaments. We observed an enhancement ofintensity by a factor of two when carburization was used, and were able to roughly optimize the amount of graphite powder necessary for carburization. The positive shift in heating current when evaporating filaments upon carburization implies that uranium was chemically altered by carburization, when compared to normal fixation processes. The good agreement between our method and known standards down to an ultra-trace level shows that the proposed technique can be applied to isotopic uranium analysis down to abundances of ~10 pg.

show abstract

“…The total amounts and average isotopic compositions of nuclear materials in a whole swipe sample can be estimated from this technique, and can reveal the presence of undeclared nuclear activities. [1][2][3][4] Environmental samples containing nuclear materials are typically collected with cotton swipes by authorized inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and distributed to the network of analytical laboratories (NWAL). Generally, the analytical procedures for bulk analysis can be divided into three parts: 1) chemical pretreatment for total digestion of the sample, 2) chemical separation for obtaining the pure elements (uranium and plutonium in most cases), and 3) quantification and isotopic measurements based on mass spectrometry or other analytical techniques.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Validation of Bulk Analysis with Simulated Swipe Samples Containing Ultra-Trace Amounts of Uranium and Plutonium Using MC-ICP-MS

Lim¹,

Han²,

Park³

et al. 2015

Mass Spectrometry Letters

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Suitable analytical procedures for the bulk analysis of ultra-trace amounts of uranium and plutonium have been developed using multi-collector inductively coupled mass spectrometry (MC-ICP-MS). The quantification and determination of the isotopic ratios of uranium and plutonium in three simulated swipe samples, a swipe blank, and a process blank were performed to validate the analytical performance. The analytical results for the simulated swipe samples were in good agreement with the certified values, based on the measurement quality goals for the analysis of bulk environmental samples recommended by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

show abstract

Development of analytical techniques for ultra trace amounts of nuclear materials in environmental samples using ICP-MS for safeguards

Cited by 31 publications

References 2 publications

Pu and Am determination in the environment—method development

Pu and Am determination in the environment—method development

Feasibility of Using Graphite Powder to Enhance Uranium Ion Intensity in Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometry (TIMS)

Validation of Bulk Analysis with Simulated Swipe Samples Containing Ultra-Trace Amounts of Uranium and Plutonium Using MC-ICP-MS

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About