Comparison of the sensitivity of 236U measurements in environmental samples by MC-ICP-MS and ATONA based high precision U TIMS measurements
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
The ATONA project is focused upon exploring the improvements in uranium isotope ratio measurements by thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS) provided by a new, capacitor-based, amplifier technology. These “ATONA” Faraday amplifiers (Isotopx Ltd, UK) promise accurate, low-noise measurements of very small signals (< 1 femto-amp) in a traditional Faraday cup, which was only previously possible using an ion counter. This report outlines a series of experiments that were performed to assess the performance of the system in samples that test our rapid analysis procedures, and then compare the results against other mass spectrometry techniques currently available for environmental analyses. The following major goals were achieved: (1) illustrated the importance of 236U measurements for the screening and analysis of environmental samples; (2) improved sensitivity for 236U, and then identified 236U in the 4350B standard at ultra-trace levels (3) Provided comparison of the 236U sensitivity to multi-collector inductively coupled mass spectrometry techniques (4) Illustrated high TRL for the ATONA based measurement technique. This completes the reporting requirements for task 4 in the project LCP and highlights the utility of the system to make highly sensitive 236U measurements in programmatically relevant sample matrices and at relevant uranium concentrations.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation
- DOE Contract Number:
- 89233218CNA000001
- OSTI ID:
- 2447733
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR--24-30198
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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