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Updated: Oct 29, 2025

Speciation and Bioavailability Measurements of Environmental Plutonium Using Diffusion in Thin Films
Published on: November 9, 2015
A highly‑enriched 244Pu reference material for nuclear safeguards and nuclear forensics measurements
Richard M Essex1, Ross W Williams2, Kerri C Treinen2
1National Institute of Standards and Technology, 100 Bureau Drive, Mail Stop 8462, Gaithersburg, MD 20899, USA.
Abstract:
A highly-enriched 244Pu isotope dilution reference material has been prepared and characterized for metrologically traceable measurements of very small quantities of plutonium. The amount of plutonium in samples associated with nuclear safeguards and nuclear forensic measurements can be significantly less than 1 ng. Accordingly, the ability to quantify the amount and isotopic composition of plutonium from a single mass-spectrometric analysis is particularly desirable. The highly-enriched 244Pu reference material, described here, will minimize the magnitude of spike corrections necessary to obtain accurate information on plutonium isotopic composition from isotope dilution measurements.
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