Plutonium analysis in spent-fuel dissolver solutions by isotope dilution gamma-ray spectrometry

Conference · Tue Oct 01 04:00:00 EDT 1996

OSTI ID:370672

Li, T K; Parker, J L ^[1]; Kitagawa, O; Sato, S ^[2]

---

1. Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States)
2. Power Reactor & Nuclear Fuel Development Corp., Ibaraki-Ken (Japan); and others

We have developed a novel technique, isotope dilution gamma-ray spectroscopy (IDGS), for simultaneously determining the plutonium concentration and the isotopic composition of irradiated spent-fuel dissolver solutions, such as the input accountability solutions to a chemical reprocessing plant. The plutonium isotopic analysis is based on high-resolution, low-energy gamma-ray spectrometry. To measure the plutonium concentration in the dissolver solution, a spike is added to the unknown dissolver solution. We then determine the concentration from the measured isotopic differences among the spike, the dissolver solution, and the spiked dissolver solution. Resin bead techniques have been developed to rapidly separate fission products and recover plutonium from dissolver solutions for measurements by high-resolution gamma-ray spectrometry. Both plutonium concentrations and isotopic compositions of dissolver solutions analyzed by IDGS agree very well with those obtained by traditional isotope dilution mass spectrometry. The rapid and accurate IDGS technique can provide a timely, less expensive, and simpler on-site verification method of the plutonium in the input accountability samples.

• OSTI ID: 370672
• Report Number(s): CONF-960376--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

05 NUCLEAR FUELS
44 INSTRUMENTATION
INCLUDING NUCLEAR AND PARTICLE DETECTORS
ABUNDANCE
ISOTOPE DILUTION
ISOTOPE RATIO
LIQUID WASTES
PLUTONIUM
REPROCESSING
SPENT FUELS