Analysis of radionuclides in two rare earth products

This paper describes a study on radioactivity change of rare-earth products after hydrometallurgy technology, using HPGe gamma spectrometer to analyze two rare earth products (LaCl3 and YCl). The results show that in the two samples exist natural radionuclides of thorium series and actinium-uranium series as well as other natural radionuclides 138La and 176Lu. In the sample of lanthanum chloride the radioactivity of actinium-uranium series and thorium series has not reached balance, the contents of their main progenies 226Ra and 227Th obviously changes with the time, reaching balance 60 days later, while YCl3 keeps stability. (authors)