Determination of strontium in sea water by using both radioactive and stable isotopes

Abstract

By means of the isotope-dilution technique with strontium-89, the strontium content of a sample of North Atlantic sea water was found to be 8.0 f 0.1 mg per litre. By means of the radioactivation technique with strontium-89, the strontium content found was 8.0 mg per litre, whereas with strontium-87 it was 8.1 f 0.3 mg per litre. When the isotope-dilution technique with strontium-84 and strontium-88 was used, the strontium content found was 8.1 f 0.1 mg per litre.

Strontium and barium in sea water and marine organisms

“…Fossil corals were also investigated and the results are collected in Table V. Our value for the amount of strontium in sea water is 5 % higher than recent flame spectrometric determinations by Odum (195Ia) and Chow & Thompson (1955), and an activation determination by Hummel & Smales (1956). The discrepancy may arise since our sample was collected near the shoreline whereas the other workers used oceanic water, but it is within the limits of accuracy of both methods.…”

Analytical methods in oceanography I. Inorganic methods

“…The quoted coefficient of variation for this technique was 1 % . Neutron activation techniques have been given by both Hummel and Smales (1956) and Bowen (1956), but the precision of these methods is about 4%.…”

“…This method will be described in more detail later. Hummel and Smales (1956) used both isotope dilution and neutron activation analysis. In the isotope dilution method a spike of radioactive YSr was equilibrated with the sea water sample and both calcium and strontium were precipitated as carbonates.…”

“…They have found that the method provides much greater precision and is operationally simpler. Hummel and Smales (1956) used both isotope dilution and neutron activation techniques to determine strontium in sea water. The isotope dilution procedure yielded a coefficient of variation of 1% compared to 4% for the activation technique.…”

Some Observations Upon the Distribution of Strontium in Four Species of Ophiuroids – Ophiocomina Nigra (Abildgaard), Ophiura Albida (Forbes), Ophiothrix Suensoni (Lütken) and Ophioderma Cinereum (Müller and Troschel)

“…However, since early detection methods have relied upon chemical separation, accurate quantitative determination of small amounts of strontium, has presented many difficulties due to the chemical similarity of strontium and calcium. During the last 30 years a number of relatively sensitive methods have been developed (Smales, 1951;Thompson & Chow, 1955;Bowen, 1956;Hummel & Smales, 1956;Odum, 19576;Sugawara & Kawasaki, 1958;Culkin & Cox, 1966;Riley & Segar, 1970;Gibbs & Bryan, 1972). Towards the beginning of this period, Vinogradov (1953) made an extensive review of the chemical data on the marine biota.…”