Issue 4, 2023

Rapid isotopic analysis of uranium particles by laser ablation MC-ICP-MS

Abstract

We present a methodology for characterizing the isotopic composition of uranium (U) in μm-scale particles by laser ablation multicollector-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (MC-ICP-MS). Analyses were performed using two U particle materials, 235U-enriched Certified Reference Material (CRM) U200 and depleted uranium (DU) produced by Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL). The laser was rastered over the sample surface and the signal derived from each individual particle was integrated separately and reduced using a bespoke data reduction package, including application of corrections for instrumental mass bias and ion counter gains. Accurate 234U/238U, 235U/238U and 236U/238U ratios were obtained with percent-level precision in samples with isotopic compositions spanning >2 orders of magnitude, including successfully resolving 234U and 236U abundances of <10 ppm and <80 ppm respectively in SRNL-DU. Comparable results obtained by laser ablation (LA) MC-ICP-MS and large geometry—secondary ionization mass spectrometry (LG-SIMS) indicate that laser ablation can provide valuable information when rapid U isotopic analysis of environmental samples is required.

Graphical abstract: Rapid isotopic analysis of uranium particles by laser ablation MC-ICP-MS

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
05 12月 2022
Accepted
24 1月 2023
First published
09 2月 2023
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2023,38, 827-840

Rapid isotopic analysis of uranium particles by laser ablation MC-ICP-MS

J. Wimpenny, K. M. Samperton, P. Sotorrio, M. S. Wellons, S. M. Scott, D. Willingham and K. Knight, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2023, 38, 827 DOI: 10.1039/D2JA00403H

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements