Determination of Americium in a Nitric Acid Medium Using Second-Order Derivative Spectrophotometry

Abstract

A second-order derivative spectrophotometric method has been developed for the determination of microgram quantities of trivalent americium in a nitric acid medium containing plutonium and uranium. The second-order derivative absorbance of the americium at 503.5 nm is used for the quantitative analysis. In the determination of 5.8 µg/ml and 3.9 µg/ml of americium, the presence of a 100-fold amount of plutonium and a 600-fold amount of uranium could be tolerated, respectively. The trivalent americium, in the concentration range of 1-11 µg/ml has been determined with good precision. The detection limit was 0.3 µg/ml at 3 times the standard deviation (3Q). The relative standard deviation was less than 2.1% for a sample of uranium-plutonium mixed oxide. The proposed method does not require the complicated separation step of plutonium and uranium.

Determination of americium in plutonium based nuclear fuel materials: An assessment of different methodologies

“…There are a number of approaches published in literature [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] for the determination of 241 Am in various matrices like environmental, biological, geological, waste materials, river water, nuclear fall out, etc. Since 241 Am is present in low-ppt amounts, it becomes mandatory to separate and purify 241 Am from bulk of the matrix.…”

“…A second order derivative spectrophotometric method was reported [4] for the determination of Am(III) in HNO 3 medium in presence of U(VI) and Pu(IV) without separation, in MOX fuel materials. The zero point-to-trough measurement technique was used since Am(III) was observed to have two zero points at around 501 and 505 nm and a trough at 503.5 nm.…”