High-Performance Method for Determination of Pu Isotopes in Soil and Sediment Samples by Sector Field-Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

Plutonium is extensively studied in radioecology (e.g., soil to plant transfer and radiological assessment) and geochemistry (e.g., sediment dating). Here, we reported a new chemical separation method for rapid determination of Pu in soil and sediment samples, based on the following investigations: extraction behaviors of interfering elements (IEs, for inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICPMS) measurement) on TEVA resin; decontamination of U using TEVA, UTEVA, and DGA resins; and the impact of coprecipitation on Pu determination. The developed method consists of four steps: HNO leaching for Pu release; CaF/LaF coprecipitation for the removal of major metals and U; the proposed TEVA + UTEVA + DGA procedure for the removal of U, Pb, Bi, Tl, Hg, Hf, Pt, and Dy; and ICPMS measurement. The accuracy of this method in determining Pu activity andPu/Pu and Pu/Pu isotopic ratios was validated by analyzing five standard reference materials (soil, fresh water sediment, and ocean sediment). This method is characterized by its stable and high Pu recovery (90-97% for soil; 92-98% for sediment) and high decontamination factor of U (1.6 × 10), which is the highest reported for soil and sediment samples. In addition, the short analytical time of 12 h and the method detection limits, which are the lowest yet reported in literature, of 0.56 μBq g (0.24 fg g) for Pu, 1.2 μBq g (0.14 fg g) for Pu, and 0.34 mBq g (0.09 fg g) for Pu (calculated on the basis of a 1 g soil sample) allow the rapid determination of ultratrace level Pu in soil and sediment samples.

Wide Band Gap Cu2SrSnS4 Solar Cells from Oxide Precursors

“…The concentrations of plutonium isotopes ( 239, 240 Pu) in environmental samples are normally very low, to be (0.04-400)10 -16 g/m 3 in the atmosphere 16,17 , (1-900)×10 -15 g/g in soil and sediment 9,[18][19][20][21] , and (0.5-22)×10 -16 g/L in seawater samples 22,23 . The accurate determination of trace amount of plutonium isotopes requires a high enrichment of plutonium from a large size of sample and separation from matrices and interfering substances, as well as a sensitive measurement method.…”

Establishing rapid analysis of Pu isotopes in seawater to study the impact of Fukushima nuclear accident in the Northwest Pacific

“…It was reported that LaF 3 or NdF 3 can selectively co-precipitate Pu (III, IV) effectively 21 , 25 , 34 . Another advantage of CaF 2 /LaF 3 co-precipitation is that 60% of U can be removed by this procedure 35 . Besides, the fluoride co-precipitation can also remove the large amount of iron and titanium used in the primary co-precipitation step 25 .…”

“…It is worth noting that, the prerequisite for using extraction resins for Pu separation is that large amounts of matrix elements must be removed almost completely through suitable pretreatment 22 . TEVA resin has a high capacity factor for Pu (3 × 10 4 ) and is more effective for samples containing high concentrations of Fe, Mn, Ce, and interfering elements, such as U, Pb, Hg, which become the first choice for Pu separation 8 , 35 . UTEVA resin has much higher selectivity for U 8 .…”

“…UTEVA resin has much higher selectivity for U 8 . DGA resin can retain both trivalent and tetravalent actinides and further remove U, Tl, Pb, and Fe 34 , 35 . It is reported that the decontamination factor (DF) of U up to ~3 × 10 6 can be achieved for the urine sample when TEVA+UTEVA+DGA resin combination was used 25 .…”

Cerium Coordination Polymer Based Composite Mimicking Peroxidase for Detection of Nitroaniline

“…When loading more Pt, the peak intensity of Pt increased relatively, as shown in Figure 3b-f. The percentage of Pt is indicated in the brackets of the subtitle, and was determined by inductively coupled plasma (ICP) atomic emission spectrometric analysis [23]. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) spectra were also measured for the samples, as shown in Figure 4.…”