Rapid determination of plutonium in water samples using vacuum box system separation and low background liquid scintillation counter measurement

Abstract

An analytical method for rapid determination of ^239+240plutonium in environmental water samples was developed. The separation of plutonium from matrices and interfering elements was performed using anion exchange chromatographic columns in a vacuum box system. Under the optimized conditions, the chemical yield of plutonium is better than 90% and the decontamination factors for uranium, thorium and americium ranged from 10³ to 10⁴ for 5 L water samples. The concentration of plutonium was measured by detecting the α decay of ^239+240plutonium using low background liquid scintillation counting (LSC). The analytical results of the plutonium in water samples were in good agreement with the values obtained by the conventional method, indicating that the proposed method is reliable and can be used for low level plutonium analysis in environmental water samples.