The development of sequential separation methods for the analysis of actinides in sediments and biological materials using anion-exchange resins and extraction chromatography

Ultra-trace determination of plutonium in marine samples using multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry

“…The column was washed with 8 M HNO 3 and 10 M HCl before the Pu was eluted with freshly prepared 9 M HCl-0.1 M NH 4 I. The anionexchange step reduces other actinides (Am, Th and U) in the sample matrix as well as removing Pb and lanthanides that may cause interferences in the MC-ICP-MS analysis [13,20,28]. The eluent was evaporated to dryness and treated with HNO 3 and H 2 O 2 to destroy any residual organic material and remove iodine.…”

“…In general, samples are digested using acid leaching or HF [13,14]. For seawater samples, pre-concentration is usually carried out by co-precipitation with Fe(OH) 2 , Fe(OH) 3 or MnO 2 .…”

Comparative study of different analytical methods for the determination of 238U, 234U, 235U, 230Th and 232Th in NORM samples (Southern Catalonia)

“…First it is necessary the conversion of the isotopes associated with the matrix into their soluble form, and then their radiochemical separation. In particular, the complete dissolution of the samples has mainly been performed using acidic digestion, but this procedure is time consuming and implies the use of hazardous reagents (Lee et al, 2005;Mihai, 2005). More recently, alternative procedures that simplify the digestion processes have been introduced, such as the use of microwave digestion (MW) or fusion digestion (Mihai, 2005;Michel et al, 2008;Singhal et al, 2010).…”

Rapid methods for the determination of long-lived radionuclides in environmental samples by ICP-SFMS and radioanalytical techniques

“…The pre-concentration and the separation of the analyte after suitable dissolution are usually carried out by series of co-precipitation, solvent extraction, ion-exchange or extraction chromatographic steps [8][9][10]. However, in case of soil or sediment samples these methods are usually tedious, time consuming, or not selective enough or several clean-up steps are required to effectively remove matrix components and to obtain sufficiently clean final americium and plutonium fraction for the analysis.…”