Authors: S L Maxwell
Publish Date: 2007/09/24
Volume: 275, Issue: 2, Pages: 395-402
Abstract
The analysis of actinides in environmental soil and sediment samples is very important for environmental monitoring There is a need to measure actinide isotopes with very low detection limits A new rapid actinide separation method has been developed and implemented that allows the measurement of plutonium americium and curium isotopes in large soil samples 100–200 g with high chemical recoveries and effective removal of matrix interferences This method uses stacked TEVA Resin® TRU Resin® and DGAResin® cartridges from Eichrom Technologies Darien IL USA that allows the rapid separation of plutonium Pu americium Am and curium Cm using a single multistage column combined with alphaspectrometry The method combines an acid leach step and innovative matrix removal using cerium fluoride precipitation to remove the difficult soil matrix This method is unique in that it provides high tracer recoveries and effective removal of interferences with small extraction chromatography columns instead of large ionexchange resin columns that generate large amounts of acid waste By using vacuum box cartridge technology with rapid flow rates sample preparation time is minimized
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