100 mg $sup 251$Cf activation analysis facility at the Savannah River Laboratory

Conference · Wed Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1975

OSTI ID:4156323

MacMurdo, K. W.; Bowman, W. W.

The $sup 252$Cf Activation Analysis Facility at the Savannah River Laboratory (SRL) is used routinely for multielement analyses of a wide variety of solid and liquid samples (e.g., metal alloys, fly ash and other airborne particles, rocks, and aqueous and nonaqueous solutions). An automated absolute activation analysis technique, developed to use neutron transport codes to calculate multienergy group neutron spectra and fluxes, converts counting data directly into elemental concentrations expressed in parts per million. The facility contains four sources of $sup 252$Cf totaling slightly over 100 mg. A pneumatic ''rabbit'' system permits automatic irradiation/decay/counting regimes to be performed unattended on up to 100 samples. Detection sensitivities of less than or equal to 400 ppb natural uranium and less than or equal to 0.5 nCi/g for $sup 239$Pu are observed. Detection limits for over 65 elements have been determined. Over 40 elements are detectable at the one part per million level or less. Overall accuracies of +- 10 percent are observed for most elements. (auth)

• Research Organization: Du Pont de Nemours (E.I.) and Co., Aiken, S.C. (USA). Savannah River Lab.
• NSA Number: NSA-33-002557
• OSTI ID: 4156323
• Report Number(s): DP-MS--75-37; CONF-751009--2
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

*ACTIVATION ANALYSIS
400101* --Chemistry--Analytical & Separations Chemistry-- Activation & Nuclear Reaction Procedures
ACCURACY
CALIFORNIUM 252
MULTI-ELEMENT ANALYSIS
N40110* --Chemistry--Analytical & Separations Chemistry-- Activation & Nuclear Reaction Procedures
NEUTRON REACTIONS
NEUTRON SOURCES
PNEUMATICS
SAVANNAH RIVER PLANT
SENSITIVITY