Establishment of environmental sampling baseline of a nuclear facility using large geometry-secondary ion mass spectrometry (LG-SIMS)

Analysis of solid uranium particulates on cotton swipes with an automated microextraction-ICP-MS system

“…24,25 LG-SIMS were first implemented by the IAEA for environmental swipe samples in 2011, and have since become a utilized technique for particle analysis as they can achieve high mass resolution compared to compact SIMS instruments without reduction in sensitivity, and are usually fitted with multiple detectors. 1 One drawback to SIMS analysis is the formation of polyatomic interferences, in particular the 236 U signal can be affected by 235 U 1 H. 1,26 Both FT-TIMS and LG-SIMS requires removing particles from the surface of a swipe sample before analysis, which runs the risk of missing particles or losing them in the transfer process. Laser ablation – inductively coupled plasma – mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) is being explored as a direct sampling alternative to TIMS and SIMS measurements.…”