MEASUREMENT OF RADIONUCLIDES USING ION CHROMATOGRAPHY AND FLOW-CELL SCINTILLATION COUNTING WITH PULSE SHAPE DISCRIMINATION

Fjeld, R. A. ; DeVol, T.A. ; Leyba, J.D.

South Carolina Universities and Research Foundation (United States)

关键词: Sample Preparation;    Ion Exchange Chromatography;    Curium;    Neptunium;    Radioactive Waste Management;   

DOI  :  10.2172/834565
RP-ID  :  NONE
RP-ID  :  AR21-95MC32110
RP-ID  :  834565

美国|英语

来源: UNT Digital Library

【 摘 要 】

Radiological characterization and monitoring is an important component of environmental management activities throughout the Department of Energy complex. Gamma-ray spectroscopy is the technology most often used for the detection of radionuclides. However, radionuclides which cannot easily be detected by gamma-ray spectroscopy, such as pure beta emitters and transuranics, pose special problems because their quantification generally requires labor intensive radiochemical separations procedures that are time consuming and impractical for field applications. This project focused on a technology for measuring transuranics and pure beta emitters relatively quickly and has the potential of being field deployable. The technology combines ion exchange liquid chromatography and on-line alpha/beta pulse shape discriminating scintillation counting to produce simultaneous alpha and beta chromatograms. The basic instrumentation upon which the project was based was purchased in the early 1990's. In its original commercial form, the instrumentation was capable of separating select activation/fission products in ionic forms from relatively pure aqueous samples. We subsequently developed the capability of separating and detecting actinides (thorium, uranium, neptunium, plutonium, americium, and curium) in less than 30 minutes (Reboul, 1993) and realized that the potential time savings over traditional radiochemical methods for isolating some of these radionuclides was significant. However, at that time, the technique had only been used for radionuclide concentrations that were considerably above environmental levels and for aqueous samples of relatively high chemical purity. For the technique to be useful in environmental applications, development work was needed in lowering detection limits; to be useful in applications involving non-aqueous matrices such as soils and sludges or complex aqueous matrices such as those encountered in waste samples, development work was needed in sample preparation and processing. The general goal of this project was to address the issues mentioned above, and in so doing transform an interesting laboratory technique of limited applicability into a robust field instrument suitable for environmental restoration and waste management applications. The project consisted of the following tasks: (1) development of a low background, flow-cell detector, (2) identification of sample chemical and radiological interferences, (3) development of protocols for processing waste and/or environmental samples, and (4) integration and testing of the prototype system. The scope of work associated with these tasks has been completed and the report for Tasks 1-3 was submitted previously. Presented here are the results for Task 4.