Development of Pd separation technique based on laser-induced particle formation for determination of Pd in radioactive wastes with mass spectrometry

Yomogida, Takumi   ; Asai, Shiho; Saeki, Morihisa; Hanzawa, Yukiko  ; Esaka, Fumitaka  ; Oba, Hironori  ; Kitatsuji, Yoshihiro  

Palladium-107, which is one of the long-lived fission products in high-level radioactive waste (HLW), is a pure beta emitter with a half-life of 6.510 y. The inventory estimation of Pd is demanded for the long-term safety assessment of geological repository. ICP-MS is suitable for the determination of Pd because radiometry with a low beta energy of 33 keV is practically inapplicable. However, cumbersome chemical separation accompanied with highly radioactive sample treatment is still necessary prior to the measurement with ICP-MS. To minimize radioactive contamination and radiation exposure, simplified procedure is desirable. In this study, a simple separation technique based on laser-induced microparticle formation has been applied to Pd separation in a simulated HLW solution. Sufficiently high decontamination factors of coexisting elements ( 1000) were observed, indicating that the proposed method achieved highly-selective separation of Pd.