Simultaneous determination of actinide-isotopes by online solid phase extraction-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry

Matsueda, Makoto   ; Kawakami, Tomohiko*; Teruyama, Yuko*; Terashima, Motoki  ; Iijima, Kazuki  ; Furukawa, Makoto*; Takagai, Yoshitaka*

Actinides have a significant radiotoxicity risk of internal exposure to human body due to their emission of high energy alpha particle. An analysis of the actinides is important for safe management of nuclear power plants and radioactive wastes. A traditional method using alpha spectrometry needs a time-consuming and complicated multi-step pretreatment process. Inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) can potentially realize rapid and simple analytical method by reducing the pretreatment process through combining various automatic chemical separation systems. Such a combination including a hyphenation of chemical instrument and pretreatment system can also be achieved to improve applicability of ICP-MS for simultaneous determination of actinides. In this study, we developed an automatic analytical system of online solid-phase extraction (SPE)-ICP-MS equipped with multi-separation steps of SPE for simultaneous determination of actinides (Th, U, Pu, and Am).