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Updated: Jul 15, 2026

Speciation and Bioavailability Measurements of Environmental Plutonium Using Diffusion in Thin Films
Published on: November 9, 2015
Precise determination of Pu isotopes in a seawater reference material using ID-SF-ICP-MS combined with two-stage
1Nakaminato Laboratory for Marine Radioecology, Environmental Radiation Effects Research Group, National Institute of Radiological Sciences, Japan. jzheng@nirs.go.jp
Abstract:
In order to obtain the precise Pu isotope composition of Irish Sea water reference material issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA-381), we analyzed the activities of (239)Pu, (240)Pu and the atom ratio of (240)Pu/(239)Pu by a highly sensitive isotope dilution SF-ICP-MS method combined with two-stage chromatographic separation and purification. With a mean chemical yield of 65% for (242)Pu tracer, the experimentally established values for (239)Pu, (240)Pu and (239+240)Pu activities are in good agreement with the certified ones. For the (240)Pu/(239)Pu atom ratio, we obtain a value of 0.2315 +/- 0.0008 with a high precision (RSD, 0.35%), which is much more precise than the information value of 0.22 +/- 0.03 (RSD, 13.6%) provided by the IAEA certification report. The precise determination of Pu isotopes in this seawater reference material will be useful for the validation of analytical methods for the study of radionuclides in the marine environment.
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