Determination of actinides at the radiological and environmental sciences laboratory

This article briefly discribes some of the techniques and procedures that have been developed at the Radiological and Environmental Sciences Laboratory (RESL) to determine the actinides in environmental and biological samples. Dried or ashed samples are totally decomposed in high temperature fusions or with an acid dissolution method. Actinides of interest are coprecipitated from the sample matrix with barium sulfate, cerium fluoride, or a combination of ferrous phosphate and calcium fluoride precipitations. The precipitates are dissolved in perchloric acid and extracted with bis(2-ethylhexyl)phosphoric acid (HDEHP) or dissolved in acidic aluminium nitrate and extracted with Aliquat-336. Actinides in the stripped fractions are coprecipitated with 50 μg of cerium as cerium fluoride, filtered onto membrane filters and counted by alpha spectrometry. The described procedures enable an experienced analyst to prepare sixteen 1 g soil or twelve 5 g faecal ash samples for alpha spectrometry in 14 to 16 working-hours. (orig.)