Developing accelerator mass spectrometry capabilities for anthropogenic radionuclide analysis to extend the set of oceanographic tracers

Hain, K.*; Martschini, M.*; Glce, F.*; Honda, Maki; Lachner, J.*; Kern, M.*; Pitters, J.*; Quinto, F.*; Sakaguchi, Aya*; Steier, P.*; et al.

Frontiers in Marine Science (Internet), 9, p.837515_1 - 837515_17, 2022/03

https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.837515

Recent major advances in accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) at the Vienna Environmental Research Accelerator (VERA) regarding detection efficiency and isobar suppression have opened possibilities for the analysis of additional long-lived radionuclides at ultra-low environmental concentrations. These radionuclides, including U, Cs, Tc and Sr, will become important for oceanographic tracer application due to their generally conservative behavior in ocean water. In particular, the isotope ratios U/U and Cs/Cs have proven to be powerful fingerprints for emission source identification as they are not affected by elemental fractionation. Improved detection efficiencies allowed us to analyze all major long-lived actinides, i.e. U, Np, Pu, Am as well as the very rare U, in the same 10 L water samples of an exemplary depth profile from the northwest Pacific Ocean. Especially for Sr analysis, our new approach has already been validated for selected reference materials (e.g. IAEA-A-12) and is ready for application in oceanographic studies. We estimate that a sample volume of only (1-3) L ocean water is sufficient for Sr as well as Cs analysis, respectively.