Measurement of tritium activity in soils

Tritium a radionuclide can accumulate in soils as a result of releases by the nuclear power industry. Currently there are no suitable methods to measure tritium levels in soils. A relatively simple extraction method is reported. The procedure involves an extraction of soil-borne tritium with NaOH and potassium permanganate solutions followed by standard scintillation counting procedures. The method detected tritium levels in soils that averaged 0.0099 Bq g-1 soil. Soil samples spiked with tritium were very reproducible with a coefficient of variability of 5%.