Rapid measurements of 235U fission product isotope ratios using an online, high-pressure ion chromatography inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry protocol with comparison to isotopic depletion models

Rare Earth Element Determination in Uranium Ore Concentrates Using Online and Offline Chromatography Coupled to ICP-MS

“…Signal smoothing enabled the fitted peak areas between isotope peaks from the same element to be compared, yielding isotopic ratios in atom percent. The peak fitting and smoothing settings applied to determine peak area, found within the "Peak Detection" settings of the Qtegra software, are as detailed previously [27,28,33]. Where slight peak overlap occurred for Yb and Lu the isobaric peaks were statistically deconvoluted using the "multiple peak fitting" function of the OriginLab ® OriginPro ® 2018 graphing software (OriginLab Corporation, Wellesley Hills, MA, USA).…”

“…The offline separation protocol was adapted from Roach et al [28]. Each injection had ~30 min separation (1 mL min −1 ) which included a 5 min washing step (5% oxalic acid and 95% water) at the end of the separation.…”

“…Ion chromatography has been used to separate actinides and uranium fission products since the 1980s, and subsequently has been applied to REEs separations in environmental samples and uranium material such as nuclear fuel or irradiated material [14,[22][23][24][25]. Recently, methods using high-performance ion chromatography (HPIC) have been developed to separate a wide variety of elements, including REEs, from various sample types including spent nuclear fuel [14], sediment and soil samples [26,27], irradiated highly enriched uranium targets [28], and transplutonium elements created from an irradiated californium target [29]. Often, HPIC uses a cation exchange column to separate lanthanides based on charge density.…”

Nuclear Analytical and Chemical Isotopics Laboratories Sample Analytical Plan for the Sister Rod Spent Nuclear Fuel Specimens

“…The atomic percent ratios will be converted to mass percent before reporting. The chromatographic peak fitting and smoothing settings applied to determine peak areas, found within the "Peak Detection" settings of Qtegra, are as detailed previously [3][4][5][6][7].…”

“…The coupled instruments will be housed within a radiological fume hood, facilitating the analyses of radioactive samples. The method development, isotopic detection limits, system stability, elution profiles, data analysis, method uncertainties, and various uranium-based applications have been reported previously [6][7][8][9][10][11]. RAPID will be used to directly measure the isotopic composition of the isolated elements in real time.…”