Activation analysis of human diet samples with epithermal neutrons

Activation of diet samples by epithermal reactor neutrons is a very sensitive method for the determination of iodine. The method was developed and optimized for its determination. However, it turned out that with the same measurement valid results were also obtained for Br, Cl, K, Na, and P. The procedure involves the irradiation of the sample in a boron nitride (BN) container for 1 min, followed by gamma-counting for 20 min after a decay time of 7-15 min. The necessary sample weight is 0.5 g (dry), and no chemical operations have to be performed. The capacity is 15 samples per working day, and results are available immediately.