Rapid determination of actinides and 90Sr in river water

​Analytica Chimica Acta / Volume 883, pages 109-116, juillet 2015

Nuclear accidents occurred in latest years highlighted the difficulty to achieve, in a short time, the quantification of alpha and beta emitters. Indeed, most of the existing methods, though displaying excellent performances, can be very long, taking up to several weeks for some radioisotopes, such as ⁹⁰Sr.

This study focuses on alpha and beta radioisotopes which could be accidentally released from nuclear installations and which could be measured by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS). Indeed, a new and rapid separation method was developed for ^{234,235,236,238}U, ^230,232Th, ^239,240Pu, ²³⁷Np, ²⁴¹Am and ⁹⁰Sr. The main objective was to minimize the duration of the separation protocol by the development of a unique radiochemical procedure with elution media compatible with ICP-MS measurements.

Excellent performances were obtained with spiked river water samples. These performances are characterized by total yields exceeding 80% for all monitored radionuclides, as well as good reproducibility (RSD ≤ 10%, n = 12). The proposed radiochemical separation (including counting time) required less than 7 h for a batch of 8 samples.