Pre-concentration and separation of thorium, uranium, plutonium and americium in human soft tissues by extraction chromatography

Abstract

An extraction chromatographic method is described for the pre-concentration and separation of thorium, uranium, plutonium and americium in human soft tissues. Tissues such as lung and liver are oven dried at 120 ~ ashed at 450 ~ and the ashed sample is alternately wet (HNO3/H202) and dry ashed, and then dissolved in 8M HC1. Because of the complex matrix and large sample samples (up to 1500 g), the actinides were preconcentrated from the tissue solution using the TRU TM resin (EIChroM) prior to elemental separation by extraction chromatography and determination of americium, plutonium, uranium and thorium by alpha spectrometry. The actinides were eluted from the preconcentration column and each actinide was individually eluted on TEVA TM and TRU TM resin columns in a tandem configuration. Actinide activities were then determined by alpha spectrometry after electrodeposition from a sulfate medium. The method was validated by analyzing human tissue samples previously analyzed for americium, plutonium, uranium and thorium in the United States Transuranium and Uranium Registries (USTUR). Two

Th(IV) ion-imprinted polymer for selective solid-phase extraction of Th(IV) and its analytical applications

“…The traditional preconcentration and separation methods for heavy metals are liquid-liquid extraction [5], electrodeposition [6], ion exchange [7][8][9][10], extraction chromatography [11] and solid-phase extraction (SPE) [12]. Of all these preconcentration methods, the SPE is the most popular one because of flexible working conditions and simple procedures.…”

Simultaneous preconcentration and determination of U(VI), Th(IV), Zr(IV) and Hf(IV) ions in aqueous samples using micelle-mediated extraction coupled to inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry

“…To solve these problems, various preconcentration and separation techniques including solvent extraction, solid phase extraction, ion-exchange, electrodeposition, extraction chromatography, etc. have been developed [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18].…”

A new method for the determination of plutonium and americium using high pressure microwave digestion and alpha-spectrometry or ICP-SMS

“…For several decades, liquid-liquid extraction and ion exchange chromatography were the best approaches [2,11]. Although these methods are still used [10,12,13], most of the recent methodologies are based on extraction chromatography resins using Eichrom Ò TEVA for Pu and TRU for Am [14][15][16]. Using these extraction chromatographic resins considerably reduces the time and reagent volumes required for the analysis [17].…”