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Updated: Aug 10, 2025

Speciation and Bioavailability Measurements of Environmental Plutonium Using Diffusion in Thin Films
Published on: November 9, 2015
Use of Compton suppression gamma ray spectrometry to determine 239Pu
C Egozi1, S Landsberger2, W S Charlton2
1Los Alamos National Laboratory, P.O. Box 1663, Los Alamos, NM, 87545, USA.
Abstract:
239Pu has been characterized by gamma-ray spectroscopy for a level higher than the usual environmental ones typically needing alpha spectrometry, ICP-MS or TIMS. The higher activities typically have applications in reprocessing, safeguards verification, and nuclear forensics. For activities of hundreds of Bq/g, it is possible to use gamma ray spectrometry for 239Pu characterization. A soil reference standard of 185 Bq/g (75 ng/g) was measured on a 79% efficient HPGe with a digital Compton suppression system. The ratios of the counting statistics for suppressed and unsuppressed uncertainties for various 239Pu photopeaks were determined. The effects of self-attenuation on the low energy gamma rays were evaluated, and it was determined that Compton suppression was an effective characterization method of 239Pu after accounting for self-attenuation.
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