Mass spectrometric determination of burnup of (U, Pu)O2 fuel using nanogram quantities of isotopes

Isotope ratio analysis of actinides, fission products, and geolocators by high-efficiency multi-collector thermal ionization mass spectrometry

“…Additionally, the isotopic composition of elements like strontium, neodymium, lead, and stable isotopes (H, C, N, O, and S) encodes details about the geographic provenance and potentially the geographic origin; it is being utilized in a variety of scientific fields including forensic investigations [88,91,[97][98][99][100][101][102][103]. Isotope ratio analysis of various fission products can, for example, provide useful information on the burn-up of nuclear fuels [3,47,48]. Isotope dilution techniques (spiking) permit highly accurate determination of elemental concentrations [104][105][106] and radioactive tracers can be used, for example, to Table 1 Isotopic composition (in atom percent) of uranium and plutonium originating from different sources; # initial core enrichment; $ uranium materials with U-235 enrichments of significantly less than 90% can be used to build fission weapons; & Oralloy = Oak Ridge Alloy.…”

Thermal Ionisation Mass Spectrometry

“…Examples are the isotopic measurements of Nd, 172 Cs, 173 235 U burn-up or the production of Pu, Am, and Cm. 71,173,174 These analytical data are also used for evaluation of calculation codes or nuclear waste disposal. 175 The discovery of the Oklo-Bangombe natural reactors at various sites in Gabon, Africa, in 1972 was due to an accurate determination of the isotope ratio 238 U/ 235 U in respective uranium ore samples (reviewed by De Laeter and Hidaka 176 ).…”

Burnup Determination of High Burnup and Dry Processed Fuels Based on Isotope Dilution Mass Spectrometric Measurements

“…Another approach is to use a different monitor such as 145 Nd+ 146 Nd because the sum of 145 Nd and 146 Nd appears to be invariant to the neutron flux and fluence. [2][3][4]7) For a burnup measurement, Nd is usually separated from an irradiated material and its amount is determined by the mass spectrometric isotope dilution technique.…”