Rapid radionuclide specific screening procedures in drinking water: alternative options to replace inaccurate gross activity measurements

Abstract

It was concluded from two European wide proficiency tests that the gross alpha/beta methods used for drinking water analysis have fundamental pitfalls regardless of the specific gross-counting methods. The majority of gross-counting methods suffer from serious trueness and repeatability issues. To replace inaccurate gross activity measurements an alternative rapid radionuclide specific screening procedure for water analysis is proposed. This procedure considers liquid scintillation counting, alpha-particle- and gamma-ray spectrometry. The proposed procedure is more robust and can achieve lower uncertainties than gross-counting methods. Furthermore, qualitative and quantitative analytical data can be obtained with turnaround times comparable to the gross-counting methods.