Quantification of curium isotopes in environmental samples: drawbacks, speciation and specific tracer

Abstract

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Direct determination of 237Np in nuclear effluent by ICP-MS/MS

“…Plutonium 236 solutions oen contain plutonium isotopes as impurities and the use of a chemical analogous as a tracer with such a complicated radiochemical protocol generates a bias on neptunium 237 determined activity. 9 The generated bias has been estimated to be ∼30%. 8 The NAA method is 500 times more sensitive than alpha spectrometry and provides very consistent results.…”

Description of strontium precipitation in highly concentrated nitric acid

“…The focus on key steps of separation allows to understand their mechanisms and determine optimal conditions (pH, concentration, critical interferents, etc.) but can also highlight bias in a protocol and solve it such as shown by Habibi et al [16] for Cm separation process. In these articles, different softwares have been used, for example Chess, Phreeqc and Medusa, but a great number of other options are available.…”

Investigation of the atomic structure of curium and determination of its first ionization potential

“…Curium is present in spent nuclear fuel with about 20 g/ton, produced by successive neutron capture and β − -decays from 238 U [3]. To date, curium isotopes from 233 Cm to 251 Cm are known, of which the isotopes 242−248 Cm and 250 Cm exhibit long half-lives in the order of 1 up to 10 7 years [4]. These allow for a variety of spectroscopic studies in this element.…”