An Analytical method of low-level radium isotopes in freshwater sample by -ray spectrometry; Application of pre-concentration from large volume of water sample using Powdex resin and barium sulfate coprecipitation of radium isotopes

Tomita, Jumpei; Abe, Takuya

JAEA-Research 2016-026, 12 Pages, 2017/03

JAEA-Research-2016-026.pdf:1.15MB

An analytical method of low-level Ra isotopes in freshwater samples with combination of pre-concentration from large volume of water sample (170 L) using Powdex resin and -ray spectrometry followed by simple coprecipitation of Ra was developed. pre-concentration of Ra by batch method using Powder resin was examined, and it was shown that the amount of the resin required collecting Ra in the water sample could be determined by measuring the electric conductivity (EC) of water sample. It was found that coprecipitation of Ra with barium sulfate could remove more than 96% of potassium that increases the background. The validation of this method was confirmed by the analyses of 170 L of water sample containing the known amount of Ra isotopes with different EC. Among the analyses, the recovery of Ra was 98% in average and detection limits of Ra and Ra were achieved to be approximately 0.3 and 0.5 mBq L, respectively.