Polonium–lead extractions to determine the best method for the quantification of clean lead used in low-background radiation detectors
Very sensitive detectors are used for low-background applications including the detection of environmental radioactivity, double-beta decay, and dark matter. In order to reduce the background noise enough to utilize the sensitivity of these detectors, lead with little or no alpha activity is required to form the shielding. In the past, antiquity lead shielding was used for low-background detectors because lead’s most prominent alpha-emitting isotope, 210Pb, has a short half-life. The microelectronics industry is also greatly affected by alpha activity in lead and solder, and has begun producing “clean” lead for purchase. To quantify how clean the available lead is, 210Pb and, during procedural experiments, a 209Po tracer must be physically or chemically removed from the bulk lead. A reliable procedure for chemical separations that does not use large volumes of ultra-high-purity chemicals has not yet been established. Lead was dissolved and a known amount of 209Po tracer was added. The samples were put through each of two new procedures. The first procedure was based on complete dissolution of the lead followed by a column separation. The second method investigates the utility of a pre-separation step using precipitation of the lead prior to column separation. The resulting solutions were run through strontium resin columns from Eichrom Inc., a United States Transuranium and Uranium Registries (USTUR) electrodeposition procedure, and scheduled to be alpha counted for a minimum of three days. Though neither of the tested procedures had acceptable logistics for large scale implementation, later alpha counting will show which procedure is more promising for further development
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 982960
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-61934; KL0101000
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, Volume 282(Number 3):869-872, Journal Name: Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, Volume 282(Number 3):869-872
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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