Determination of ultra-low level 241Am in soil and sediment using chemical separation and triple quadrupole inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry measurement with He-NH3 as collision-reaction gas

Determination of 241Am in Environmental Samples: A Review

“…The phenomenon was observed that the isobaric interference with the determination of 241 Am could be effectively removed when He-NH 3 was used as a collision–reaction gas in Q-ICP-MS, while high sensitivity was still kept. Zhang and coworkers [ 26 ] developed a method for 241 Am measurement using triple quadruple ICP-MS (ICP-MS/MS) with He-NH 3 as a collision–reaction gas. The extremely low limit of detection of 0.091 fg/g was three times better than those using other types of ICP-MS methods.…”

“…Those components come from gravimetric links, measurement repeatability, 241 Am decay and in-growth, background, and the accuracy and purity of trace 243 Am. Zhang [ 26 ] suggested that the uncertainty of the 241 Am concentrations in CRMs and other samples mainly came from the uncertainty of the atomic ratio of 243 Am and 241 Am measured with mass spectrometry (the same situation happened in measurements with alpha spectrometry). The uncertainty of the 241 Am concentrations in environmental samples was generally less than 30%.…”

Determination of ultra-trace level241Am in soil by triple-quadrupole inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry with mass-shift mode combined with chemical separation

“…1,[6][7][8][9][10] In recent years, the development of mass spectrometric techniques has provided an opportunity for rapid and accurate measurement of 241 Am in environmental samples combined with modern chemical separation techniques (extraction chromatography, etc.). Commonly used mass spectrometric techniques include inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), 1,8,[11][12][13][14] resonance ionization mass spectrometry (RIMS), 15 thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS) 3,16 and accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS). [17][18][19][20] Owing to the lower availability and high cost, RIMS, TIMS and AMS are not widely used for 241 Am measurement compared to ICP-MS. As a preferable instrument, the rapid measurement capability of ICP-MS makes it attractive in the measurement of actinides and is widely used to analyze ultra-trace level 241 Am in environmental samples.…”

“…Several advanced radiochemical separation procedures were developed based on extraction chromatography. 11,12,14 At present, the radiochemical separation method concerning a chromatographic resin combined with co-precipitation has been well applied to analyze the 241 Am concentration in environmental samples with a small sample amount (1-5 g). 8,11,[20][21][22] But, for nuclear forensic purposes, such as sourcing articial radioactivity in the environment, the accurate measurement of ultra-trace 241 Am requires the large-size samples ($20 g) of soil or sediment, to ensure both the analytical precision and the representability of the soil sample.…”

“…Triple quadrupole inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS/MS), which is coupled with a MS/ MS design and collision/reaction cell (CRC) technology, can enhance the measured sensitivity and suppress the isobaric and polyatomic interference, and has been successfully used to measure 90 Sr, 236 U, 239,240 Pu, 135,137 Cs and 241 Am in environmental samples. 14,[26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33] When NH 3 /He-He was used as collisionreaction gas, high sensitivity of Am was retained while the isobaric interference from interfering elements was effectively suppressed (<0.2 cps, in 0.5 mol L À1 HNO 3 solution). However, based on our previous work, 14 the presence of Cl À signicantly increases the polyatomic ion interference from Pb 2+ and Hg 2+ (e.g.…”