A mobile mass spectrometry laboratory for isotopic ratio measurements of uranium and plutonium

Isotope ratio analysis of actinides, fission products, and geolocators by high-efficiency multi-collector thermal ionization mass spectrometry

“…In the nuclear forensic context, isotopic composition [1,2,4,[68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77] is of primary concern, in addition to the determination of physical parameters (including roughness, microstructure, geometry) [2][3][4][78][79][80], chemical structure (e.g., mineralogical structure, metallurgical information, oxidation states) [81][82][83], impurity and analyte content [2,3,77,78,[84][85][86][87], geolocation signatures (e.g., host rock, climate) [3,[88][89][90][91], or age since last chemical treatment [3,90,[92][93][94][95][96]. Isotope ratio analysis can be particularly useful in revealing the origin and history of nuclear materials.…”

A tandem quadrupole/time-of-flight instrument for mass spectrometry/mass spectrometry

“…All samples discussed in this paper were introduced on a thermal desorption sample probe that has been previously described (17). In the present configuration the temperature of the filament cannot be measured, but from previous results we estimate that the low-temperature desorption occurs at filament temperatures less than 400 °C (18).…”

A rapid isotope ratio analysis protocol for nuclear solid materials using nano-second laser-ablation time-of-flight ICP-MS

“…The investigation of illicit trafficking of nuclear materials, nuclear safeguards analysis, environmental monitoring, and non-proliferation control requires the determination of crucial 'fingerprints', which include isotopic analysis of actinides, mainly uranium and plutonium (Smith et al, 1982;Rokop et al, 1996;Donohue, 1998;Betti et al, 1999;Richter et al, 1999;Warneke et al, 2002;Mayer et al, 2005;Moody et al, 2005;Usuda et al, 2006;Wallenius et al, 2006;Bü rger et al, 2006aBü rger et al, , 2007aKeegan et al, 2008), to potentially determine the source of the nuclear material. As can be seen from Table 1, the difference in the isotopic composition of uranium ( 235 U/ 238 U) or plutonium ( 240 Pu/ 239 Pu) for materials from different sources (e.g., natural uranium vs. enriched uranium vs. weaponsgrade uranium; or fallout plutonium vs. reactor-grade plutonium vs. weapons-grade plutonium) is usually >10%, and can be as high as 1000% or more.…”