Effect of chemical form on ICP-MS determination of technetium and rhenium

Conference · Fri Dec 01 04:00:00 EST 1995

OSTI ID:126714

Richter, R C; Jurisson, S S; Koirtyohann, S R ^[1]

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1. Univ. of Missouri, Columbia, MO (United States)

Detection of very low levels of long-lived radioisotopes by conventional radiometric: methods poses many problems. Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) has been shown to be a reliable method for detection of trace elements. Technetium-99 (t1/2 = 2.1 x 10{sup 5} yrs) is produced in 6% yield from the fission of uranium and has entered the environment from nuclear weapons testing. A detection limit of 8 pg/ml 3{sigma} has been obtained for a 4 min measurement using 4 ml of sample solution with conventional pneumatic nebulization. Further improvements would be possible using ultrasonic nebulization or electrochemical vaporization sample introduction. Similar detection limits would require 136 days of liquid scintillation counting. The methods developed for determination of Tc-99 by ICP-MS rely on Tc-99 being in the form of pernechnetate. This may not always be the case when it comes to analyzing for Tc-99 in waste streams. We will discuss the effects of the chemical form on the precision and accuracy of ICP-MS determination. The initial work was done with rhenium analogs to determine general effects. Technetium compounds were used to determine specific effects.

• OSTI ID: 126714
• Report Number(s): CONF-950402--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

40 CHEMISTRY
ACCURACY
DETECTION
ENVIRONMENT
ICP MASS SPECTROSCOPY
MASS SPECTROMETERS
RHENIUM
TECHNETIUM 99
TECHNETIUM COMPOUNDS
URANIUM