Plutonium process control using an advanced on-line gamma monitor for uranium, plutonium, and americium

Technical Report · Fri May 01 04:00:00 EDT 1987

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/6531128· OSTI ID:6531128

Marsh, S F; Miller, M C

An on-line gamma monitor has been developed to profile uranium, plutonium, and americium in waste and product streams of the anion exchange process used to recover and purify plutonium at the Los Alamos Plutonium Facility. The gamma monitor employs passive gamma spectrometry to measure /sup 241/Am and /sup 239/Pu, based on their 59.5-keV and 129-keV gamma rays, respectively. Because natural and depleted uranium present in typical process streams have no gamma rays suitable for measurement by such passive methods, uranium measurement requires a novel and less direct technique. Plutonium-241, which is always present in plutonium processed at Los Alamos, decays primarily by beta emission to form /sup 241/Am. However, a small fraction of /sup 241/Pu decays by alpha emission to 6.8-day /sup 237/U. The short half-life and 208-keV gamma energy of /sup 237/U make it an ideal radiotracer to mark the position of macro amounts of uranium impurity in the separation process. The real-time data obtained from an operating process allow operators to optimize many process parameters. The gamma monitor also provides a permanent record of the daily performance of each ion exchange system. 2 refs., 12 figs.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Lab., NM (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-36
• OSTI ID: 6531128
• Report Number(s): LA-10921; ON: DE87010829
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

050800* -- Nuclear Fuels-- Spent Fuels Reprocessing
11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
400101 -- Activation
Nuclear Reaction
Radiometric & Radiochemical Procedures
ACTINIDE ISOTOPES
ACTINIDE NUCLEI
ACTINIDES
ALPHA DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
AMERICIUM
AMERICIUM 241
AMERICIUM ISOTOPES
BETA DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
BETA-MINUS DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
CONTROL
DATA
DAYS LIVING RADIOISOTOPES
ELEMENTS
EVEN-ODD NUCLEI
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
GAMMA SPECTROSCOPY
HEAVY NUCLEI
IMPURITIES
INFORMATION
ION EXCHANGE
ISOTOPES
METALS
NUCLEI
NUMERICAL DATA
ODD-EVEN NUCLEI
ON-LINE MEASUREMENT SYSTEMS
ON-LINE SYSTEMS
PLUTONIUM
PLUTONIUM 239
PLUTONIUM ISOTOPES
PROCESS CONTROL
PURIFICATION
RADIOISOTOPES
SPECTROSCOPY
TRANSPLUTONIUM ELEMENTS
TRANSURANIUM ELEMENTS
URANIUM
URANIUM 237
URANIUM ISOTOPES
YEARS LIVING RADIOISOTOPES