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Comparative study of plutonium-239, plutonium-240 and plutonium-242 spikes for determining plutonium concentration by isotope dilution-thermal ionization mass spectrometry

1986; Elsevier BV; Volume: 71; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/0168-1176(86)80032-5

1873-2801

Suresh K. Aggarwal, R. K. Duggal, Radhika M. Rao, H. C. Jain,

Radioactive element chemistry and processing

Abstract An experimental evaluation of 239Pu, 240Pu and 242Pu spikes in terms of precision and accuracy for determining the plutonium concentration by isotope dilution-thermal ionisation mass spectrometry (ID-TIMS) in irradiated fuels is presented. Results obtained on different plutonium samples covering a wide range of burn-up values are given. Mean precision values of 0.1–0.2% are achieved by using any of the three spikes and factors close to unity are obtained for the ratios ID-TIMS(240Pu)/ID-TIMS(242Pu) and ID-TIMS(239Pu)/ID-TIMS(242Pu). This study shows that there is no significant advantage in using 240Pu spike when compared to 239Pu spike. Further, it is shown that the overall error (internal+external) obtained in replicate determinations of 242Pu/239Pu atom ratio is larger due to enhanced isotope fractionation compared to that in the case of 240Pu/239Pu atom ratio.