Novel Sr analysis of environmental samples by ion-laser interaction mass spectrometry

Honda, Maki; Martschini, M.*; Marchhart, O.*; Priller, A.*; Steier, P.*; Golser, R.*; Sato, Tetsuya; Tsukada, Kazuaki; Sakaguchi, Aya*

Analytical Methods, 14(28), p.2732 - 2738, 2022/07

https://doi.org/10.1039/D2AY00604A

The sensitive Sr analysis with accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) was developed for the advances of environmental radiology. One advantage of AMS is the ability to analyze various environmental samples with Sr/Sr atomic ratios of 10 in a simple chemical separation. Three different IAEA samples with known Sr concentrations (moss-soil, animal bone, Syrian soil: 1 g each) were analyzed to assess the validity of the chemical separation and the AMS measurement. The Sr measurements were conducted on the AMS system combined with the Ion Laser InterAction MasSpectrometry (ILIAMS) setup at the University of Vienna, which has excellent isobaric separation performance. The isobaric interference of Zr in the Sr AMS was first removed by chemical separation. The separation factor of Zr in two-step column chromatography with Sr resin and anion exchange resin was 10. The Zr remaining in the sample was removed by ILIAMS effectively. This simple chemical separation achieved a limit of detection 0.1 mBq in the Sr AMS, which is lower than typical -ray detection. The agreement between AMS measurements and nominal values for the Sr concentrations of IAEA samples indicated that the new highly-sensitive Sr analysis in the environmental samples with AMS is reliable even for high matrix samples of soil and bone.