Establishment of a method for the rapid measurement of gross alpha and gross beta activities in sea water

The risk associated with NORM and with their redistribution in the environment due to human activities requires rapid methods which can be applied to a wide range of samples. The present work studies the effect that salts present in sea water have in the gross alpha/beta determination using low-level liquid scintillation counting and a new method is established. This is done from a previously established method for such determinations in non-saline water. External quenching parameter, efficiency, spectra position and interference values are evaluated to look for differences in matrix behaviour. Some quality parameters of the new method are reported.