Simultaneous determination of tellurium and uranium by neutron activation analysis

Abstract

A procedure for the simultaneous determination of tellurium and uranium is described. The procedure utilizes thermal neutron activation, followed by sample combustion and a gas phase separation of the volatile radionuclides of interest. This method is sensitive enough to permit the measurement of tellurium and uranium at their naturally occurring levels in materials of biological and environmental origin. The procedure has been successfully employed to determine the tellurium and uranium concentrations in three Standard Reference Materials (SRM's) currently being offered by the National Bureau of Standards, and in atmospheric particulate material collected in rural Maryland.

Depleted and Natural Uranium: Chemistry and Toxicological Effects

“…α-Particle counting, delayed neutron emission, mass spectrometry, fission track, and instrumental neutron activation analysis have been also used (Abu-Qare & Abou-Donia, 2001;Papastefanou, 2002;Uyttenhove et al, 2002;Hodge et al, 2001;Gladney & Rook, 1975). Traditionally, flourimetry was the most common of these techniques (with a detection limit of 1 ng); however, because of its 0.05 ng detection limit, a more recent detection method, neutron activation analysis, is also used Although both of these techniques serve to directly quantitate the 238 U mass, they don't provide any information on the 234 U: 238 U and 235 U: 238 U activity ratios in the sample (Fisenne et al, 1980).…”

Determination of picogram quantities of uranium in biological tissues by isotope dilution thermal ionization mass spectrometry with ion counting detection

“…Second, the environmental contamination during chemical processing caused by particulates and gaseous compounds in ambient air can be critical. For example, U concentrations in air have been measured at 0.03 ng/m3 in rural Maryland but concentrations as high as 90 ng/m3 have been measured near a major nuclear facility (7,19). Clean areas for sample handling and chemical separation are required to control environmental contamination.…”

“…High sensitivity measurements of U in environmental and biological matrices have been made by fluorimetry (2,5) and neutron activation analysis (3,6,7). These techniques typically require nanogram amounts of U and have precisions of several percent.…”

Determination of uranium isotopes in human bone ash

“…Therefore, to lessen the time delays of column elution for large volumes (>10 L) of water, yet retain the use of the highly sorptive polymer resins to collect nanogram quantities of organics, an analytical procedure was developed to quantify parts-per-trillion concentrations of Kepone by the addition of XAD-2 resin directly to water. To alleviate the problem of reduced XAD extraction efficiency from accumulation of suspended solid in the resin (11), water samples were vacuum filtered through a manifold filtration setup containing 0.8-µ Millipore filters. This filtration was necessary prior to XAD column elution to remove suspended solids and to quantify only "dissolved" Kepone, which is defined here as Kepone in water samples with no particles >0.8 µ .…”