Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Blind quality control samples: Which radionuclides, what activity levels?

Journal Article · · Radioactivity and Radiochemistry
OSTI ID:160083
 [1]
  1. Analytics, Inc., Atlanta, GA (United States)
Since today`s radioanalytical laboratory spends a significant amount of time analyzing quality control (QC) samples, it is important to design an efficient measurements quality-assurance (QA) program. Two important considerations when designing or evaluating a blind, QC sample-analysis program are which radionuclides and what activities should be used to evaluate the quality of measurements. If the radionuclides are not chosen carefully, some important energy ranges in spectroscopy systems will not be monitored, some parameters of chemical procedures will not be monitored, and some extraneous effects that do not need to be considered may be introduced. Careful choice of activity levels can help to identify problems with calibrations, interferences, and background while reducing the number of disagreements due solely to the random nature of radioactive decay (counting statistics). The requirements for QC samples discussed in this article apply to spiked QC samples as well as natural matrix samples.
OSTI ID:
160083
Journal Information:
Radioactivity and Radiochemistry, Journal Name: Radioactivity and Radiochemistry Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 6; ISSN RARAE6; ISSN 1045-845X
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English