An experimental approach to the determination of the gross activity of uranium, plutonium, americium and strontium in human biological samples using solid-state scintillation

Abstract

Rapid bioassay methods have been mainly proposed for the sequential measurements of actinides in human blood, bone marrow and urine. The method involves sample treatment using microwave digestion techniques followed by direct measurement of digested products using powder scintillator and alkaline solution as a replacement for traditional liquid scintillation cocktail. The selected group of radionuclides was chosen due to their occurrence in the nuclear fuel cycle, nuclear accident, high radiotoxicity, and the possibility of potential misuses, such as dirty bombs. The work aimed at verifying the connection of microwave digestion using alkaline solution with solid-state scintillation using a powder scintillator YAP:Ce together with an alkaline medium.

Thermal neutron measurements using YAP:Ce powder

“…The re search and de vel op ment of in or ganic scintil la tors has con sid er ably evolved in re cent de cades [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. The ad vanced tech nol ogy of crys tal growth together with a closer un der stand ing of the scin til la tion pro cess and band model of sol ids led to the suc cess ful pro duc tion of com plex crys tal struc tures con sist ing of rare earth el e ments.…”