PC based controlled potential coulometric titrator for quantitative analysis of nuclear materials

With increased requirements for process control and accountability of nuclear materials in plutonium reprocessing plants, the PC based controlled potential coulometric titrator was developed which has the capability of automatic quantitative analysis of the samples. The instruments based on electromechanical methods, incorporates an electronic potentiostat, a digital coulometer with wide dynamic range and a PC with a control interface card. The potentiostat is required to control the potential at the working electrode surface as per predetermined controlled voltage with respect to a reference electrode under wide variations in the conductivity and double layer capacitance of the electrochemical cell. The digital coulometer precisely measures the amount of electronic charge taking part in the electrochemical reactions of interest. The software has the facility to carry out three different types of analysis, i.e., primary coulometry, secondary coulometry and coulogram curve tracing. Due to complete analysis of the samples under program control, the human related errors are minimized and a better precision in the results are obtained. It has been possible to obtain an overall precession of better than +/- 0.3% in the determination of plutonium using the instrument. (author)