Development of on-line EDXRF to monitor actinide contaminated waste streams

A commercially available on-line energy dispersive x-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) system has been modified for glove box operations and installed on the Advanced Testing Line for Actinide Separations (ATLAS) at Los Alamos. The goal is to quantitatively monitor actinides and metal impurities in an anion-exchange effluent to obtain near-real-time chemical information. Because of recent compliance issues, metals listed in the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and other low level radioactive components are also being analyzed. Initial experiments on how pre concentration techniques can be applied to on-line EDXRF measurements for improved detection limits have also been conducted. An overview of these developments is presented in this paper. (author). 12 refs., 7 figs., 3 tabs